How has political revolution figured into the development of avant-garde cultural production? Is the vanguard an antiquated concept or does its influence still resonate in the 21st century? Focusing closely on the convergence of aesthetics and politics that materialized in the early part of the twentieth century, this study offers a re-interpretation of the historical avant-garde from 1917 to 1962, a turbulent period in intellectual history which marked the apex, crisis, and decline of vanguardist authority. Moving from the impact of the Bolshevik Revolution to the anti-imperialist and decolonizing movements in the Third World, to the emergence of neo-vanguardism in the wake of postmodernity, this study opens the way for understanding the transformation of vanguardist cultural paradigms from a global perspective, the implications of which also reveal its relevance and application to the contemporary period.

The epic history of African American women's pursuit of political power -- and how it transformed America. In the standard story, the suffrage crusade began in Seneca Falls in 1848 and ended with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. But this overwhelmingly white women's movement did not win the vote for most black women. Securing their rights required a movement of their own. In Vanguard, acclaimed historian Martha S. Jones offers a new history of African American women's political lives in America. She recounts how they defied both racism and sexism to fight for the ballot, and how they wielded political power to secure the equality and dignity of all persons. From the earliest days of the republic to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and beyond, Jones excavates the lives and work of black women -- Maria Stewart, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Fannie Lou Hamer, and more -- who were the vanguard of women's rights, calling on America to realize its best ideals.

Mostly sidestepping the issues of why people rebel, Rochlin (political science, Okanagan U. College, Canada) here focuses on how people rebel, examining how strategy and power condition successes, failures, and longevity of Latin American guerilla groups. Four case studies examine Peru's Sendero Luminoso, Colombia's FARC and ELN, and Mexico's Zapatista movement. Two chapters are provided for each group, with the first examining origins, ideologies, and support bases, while the second looks at the rebels in relation to power, strategy, and national security (presumably from the viewpoint of government elites). Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

For a thousand days in the early 1970s, Chileans experienced revolution not as a dream but as daily life. Alongside Salvador Allende’s attempt to democratically bring about a socialist regime, new understandings of the meaning of revolutionary change emerged. In her groundbreaking book Beyond the Vanguard, Marian E. Schlotterbeck explores popular politics in Chile in the decade before Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship and provides an in-depth account of how working-class people transformed the existing social order by embracing radical politics. Schlotterbeck eloquently examines the lost opportunities for creating a democratic revolution and the ways that the legacy of this period continues to resonate in Chile and beyond. Learn more about the author and this book in an interview published online with Jacobin.

During the swan song of the Soviet Union and the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, many insurgent groups that had been dependent on Moscow or Havana quickly faded into political oblivion. But some existing groups, as well as emerging ones, flourished within a new and uncharted political constellation. This comparative study probes the origins and effects of Latin America's most potent insurgent movements--in Peru, Colombia, and Mexico--which are thriving now in large part by exploiting the revolution in military affairs. Rochlin considers the intriguing question of what makes a successful revolutionary movement at the start of the 21st century. Addressing the commonalities and distinctions among subversive groups, he focuses on domestic and international context, support base, ideology, strategy, and prospects for power. He also explores the roots, metamorphosis, and prognosis of the conflicts. His in-depth discussion of these powerful rebel groups emphasizes the ways in which they are successfully rethinking the meaning of politics, revolutionary activity, and strategy in a new era.

Mexico’s National Indigenist Institute (INI) was at the vanguard of hemispheric indigenismo from 1951 through the mid-1970s, thanks to the innovative development projects that were first introduced at its pilot Tseltal-Tsotsil Coordinating Center in highland Chiapas. This book traces how indigenista innovation gave way to stagnation as local opposition, shifting national priorities, and waning financial support took their toll. After 1970 indigenismo may have served the populist aims of president Luis Echeverría, but Mexican anthropologists, indigenistas, and the indigenous themselves increasingly challenged INI theory and practice and rendered them obsolete.

The Routledge Companion to Alternative and Community Media provides an authoritative and comprehensive examination of the diverse forms, practices and philosophies of alternative and community media across the world. The volume offers a multiplicity of perspectives to examine the reasons why alternative and community media arise, how they develop in particular ways and in particular places, and how they can enrich our understanding of the broader media landscape and its place in society. The 50 chapters present a range of theoretical and methodological positions, and arguments to demonstrate the dynamic, challenging and innovative thinking around the subject; locating media theory and practice within the broader concerns of democracy, citizenship, social exclusion, race, class and gender. In addition to research from the UK, the US, Canada, Europe and Australia, the Companion also includes studies from Colombia, Haiti, India, South Korea and Zimbabwe, enabling international comparisons to be made and also allowing for the problematisation of traditional - often Western - approaches to media studies. By considering media practices across a range of cultures and communities, this collection is an ideal companion to the key issues and debates within alternative and community media.