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5.0 out of 5 stars
A Different View of the Twentieth Century, March 3, 2010
This review is from: Highlights of a Fighting History: 60 Years of the Communist Party, USA (Paperback)
This volume includes excerpts from various Communist Party publications, including newspaper articles, conference reports,speeches books.and pamphlets from 1919 to 1979. Every chapter of the book and every excerpt includes commentary from the books editors. The book chronicles how CPUSA influenced America and shows a different view on American History then shown in most history books.
The books shows the unique perspective of the CPUSA on such events and periods of American history, as the "prosperity" of the 1920's the Stock Market Crash and Great Depression, the fight against Fascism, World War Two, the Cold War, McCarthyism, the Vietnam War and the Peace Movement, and the fight for Black and Women's liberation.
This book is a great reference that includes information and many important people and events that should be of interest to anyone that wants to know more about Modern American history. Much of the information is obscure, such as various Communist Party activities after the McCarthy period, are not mentioned in many books. The articles included in this volume are written by noteworthy American Communists, long time party leaders William Foster and Gus Hall, other leaders and other leaders and prominent party members such as Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Herbert Aptheker, William Patterson, Henry Winston, and James Jackson. Other articles have been written by less well known party members. The volume also contains, cartoons and illustrations from verious CPUSA publications and a postrict with letters from novelist Theodore Dreiser and W.E.B. Dubois requesting membership in the CPUSA. Whether, you agree with the opinions expressed in the book or not, the reader learns that the CPUSA was and is not a foreign conspiracy or a nest of spies as it has been portrayed by its enemies.
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