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    11/08/2024
    A Jewish State cover

    A Jewish State

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    Chapter: 10 | Listen: 1

    Read in English, this is a pivotal document in the history of Zionism and the State of Israel. Herzl designed this work to elevate the discussion of “the Jewish Question” so it would “no longer take the form of violent abuse or sentimental vindication but of a debate, practical, large, earnest, and political.” While few of Herzl’s proposals were actually carried out, the importance of A JEWISH STATE was in the groundswell of support for a Jewish homeland engendered by its solutions to the practical problems of establishing a new state. In the words of a contemporary, “[Herzl] made it seem possible.” Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl (1860-1904) was a Hungarian writer, political economist, and Jewish activist.     [chương_files]  

    11/08/2024

    The Facts of Reconstruction

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    Chapter: 29 | Listen: 1

    After the American Civil War, John R. Lynch, who had been a slave in Mississippi, began his political career in 1869 by first becoming Justice of the Peace, and then Mississippi State Representative. He was only 26 when he was elected to the US Congress in 1873. There, he continued to be an activist, introducing many bills and arguing on their behalf. Perhaps his greatest effort was in the long debate supporting the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to ban discrimination in public accommodations. In 1884 Lynch was the first African American nominated after a moving speech by Theodore Roosevelt to the position of Temporary Chairman of the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. During the Spanish-American War of 1898, he was appointed Treasury Auditor and then Paymaster under the Republicans. In 1901, he began serving with the Regular Army with tours of duty in the United States, Cuba, and the Philippines. Lynch retired from the Army in 1911, then married Cora Williams. They moved to Chicago, where he practiced law. He also became involved in real estate. After his death in Chicago 1939 at the age of 92, he was buried with military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. He was entitled to this as a Congressman and veteran. After the turn of the centutry, Lynch wrote a book, The Facts of Reconstruction, and several articles criticizing the then-dominant Dunning School historiography. Dunning and followers had emphasized the views of former slave owners and routinely downplayed any positive contributions of […]

    10/08/2024
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    The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice

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    Chapter: 7 | Listen:

    This lengthy political essay by noted Canadian humourist Stephen Leacock was written while he was professor of political economy at McGill University. He argues for a middle ground between individualism/capitalism and pure socialism. Listeners in the early 21st century may find this 90-year old essay oddly topical.     [chương_files]  

    09/08/2024
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    Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence

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    Chapter: 51 | Listen:

    It seems eminently fitting and proper in this year, the fiftieth anniversary of the Proclamation of Emancipation that the Negro should give pause and look around him at the things which he has done, those which he might have done, and those which he intends to do. We pause, just at the beginning of another half century, taking stock of past achievements, present conditions, future possibilities. (Preface)     [chương_files]  

    28/07/2024

    Magna Carta Commemoration Essays

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    Chapter: 19 | Listen:

    On 15th June 1215 the Magna Carta was sealed under oath by King John at Runnymede, on the bank of the River Thames near Windsor, England. 2015 is the 800th anniversary of this charter, which led eventually to the rule of constitutional law in England and beyond. This book of essays on various aspects of the Charter was written by distinguished academics for the Royal Historical Society to commemorate the 700th anniversary of Magna Carta. N. B. The readers in this project are not scholars of mediaeval Latin or French. Where there are passages or phrases of Latin and Old French, we have endeavoured to make them clear, but make no claim to authentic pronunciation.     [chương_files]  

    25/07/2024

    Address to Free Colored Americans

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    Chapter: 6 | Listen: 4

    The first Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women met in New York City in May, 1837. Members at the Convention came from all walks of life and included such prominent women as Mary Parker, Lucretia Mott, the Grimke sisters, and Lydia Maria Child. One outcome of this important event was a statement of the organization’s role in the abolitionist movement as expressed in AN ADDRESS TO FREE COLORED AMERICANS, which begins: “The sympathy we feel for our oppressed fellow-citizens who are enslaved in these United States, has called us together, to devise by mutual conference the best means for bringing our guilty country to a sense of her transgressions; and to implore the God of the oppressed to guide and bless our labors on behalf of our “countrymen in chains.” This significant event was a precursor to the growing women’s rights movement of the time and to greater female involvement in other political reform movements.     [chương_files]  

    24/07/2024

    Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass

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    Chapter: 2 | Listen: 5

    These two articles were reproduced as an e-book by Project Gutenberg in 2008 to supplement “…several articles by Frederick Douglass, whose larger work was presented in book form as a January, 1993 Project Gutenberg Etext to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day….” The articles narrated here are “My Escape From Slavery” (1881) and “Reconstruction” (1866).     [chương_files]  

    24/07/2024

    For Every Music Lover

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    Chapter: 13 | Listen: 1

    A series of essays for music lovers, covering many topics. From music appreciation, to violin and symphony, music education, to piano and, in fact, the very origins of music, there is sure to be something for everyone.     [chương_files]  

    23/07/2024

    Culture and Anarchy

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    Chapter: 12 | Listen:

    Culture and Anarchy is a series of periodical essays by Matthew Arnold, first published in Cornhill Magazine 1867-68 and collected as a book in 1869. The preface was added in 1875. Arnold’s famous piece of writing on culture established his High Victorian cultural agenda which remained dominant in debate from the 1860s until the 1950s. According to his view advanced in the book, “Culture […] is a study of perfection”. He further wrote that: “[Culture] seeks to do away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light […]”. His often quoted phrase “[culture is] the best which has been thought and said” comes from the Preface to Culture and Anarchy: The whole scope of the essay is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly but mechanically, vainly imagining that there is a virtue in following them staunchly which makes up for the mischief of following them mechanically.     [chương_files]  

    22/07/2024
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    The Illustrated War News

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    Chapter: 1 | Listen:

    THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, N.B.–REMOVE INSETTED LEAFLET, DEC. 30 1914. THE GREAT WAR. In reviewing the events of the last week throughout the world-wide area of war, let us begin with the Dark Continent, where everything went in our favour–very brilliantly so. First of all, then, we may now be said to have completed our conquest of the German Cameroon country by taking possession of the whole of the railway which runs northward from Bonabari, and is now in the hands of our troops. A similar fate is reserved, at no distant date, for German South Africa, against which General Botha–a man no less brave and dashing as a soldier than sagacious as a statesman–is preparing to lead a conquering force. Having stamped out the rebellion within the Union itself–crushing it literally like a beetle–he is now addressing himself to the task.     [chương_files]