Harvard Sitkoff Libri

A Stunning Reappraisal of King and His Increased RelevanceMight Martin Luther King Jr.’s greatest accomplishments have been ahead of him? His murder in April 1968 did far more than cut tragically short the life of one of America’s most remarkable civil rights leaders. In this concise biography, Harvard Sitkoff presents a stunningly relevant King. The 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, King’s 1963 soul-stirring address from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and the 1965 history-altering Selma march are all recounted. But these are not treated as predetermined high points in a life celebrated for its role in a civil rights struggle too many Americans have quickly relegated to the past. Carefully presented alongside King’s successes are his failures—as an organizer in Albany, Georgia, and St. Augustine, Florida; as a leader of ever more strident activists; as a husband. Together, high and low points are interwoven to capture King’s lifelong struggle, through disappointment and epiphany, with his own “Let us be Christian in all our actions.” By telling King’s life as one on the verge of reaching its fullest fulfillment, Sitkoff powerfully shows where King’s faith and activism were leading him—to a direct confrontation with a president over an immoral war and with an America blind to its complicity in economic injustice.

This comprehensive, widely-read anthology presents cogent and provocative articles from differing political perspectives on major issues in post-World War II America. The third edition is considerably expanded to include new selections on the origins of the Cold War, the struggle of African-Americans for equality, the feminist movement, and Vietnam. The final section examining prospects for America in the 1990s has been completely revised, offering articles on current topics such as the urban underclass, the "greenhouse effect," nuclear arms control, and changing relations with the Soviet Union. In addition to articles by leading historians the editors have chosen first-person accounts by participants in each of the issues under discussion, from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from the Birmingham Jail to Mikhail Gorbachev's historic speech to the United Nations. With lively introductions to each section providing a context for the articles, this book helps readers make sense of the tumultuous world of our time.