bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Prologue—The Death of Mao Zedong
Authors: Blanchette Jude
Published: August 2022

This chapter discusses how Deng Xiaoping balanced two (often competing) goals since the beginning of the reforms in the late 1970s: modernizing China’s economy on the one hand and maintaining the unchallenged supremacy of the Communist Party on the other. When torn between the two, Deng always sided with Party supremacy. Yet when Party conservatives pushed too hard against the reforms, Deng would use his considerable authority and prestige to re-right the reform agenda. This story had played out again and again throughout the 1980s. To simplify what was a remarkable complex political time, two groups vied for control of economic policymaking: reformists, led by State Council premier Zhao Ziyang and CCP general secretary Hu Yaobang, and conservatives, a loose coalition of powerful senior-level officials, entrenched bureaucrats, aging revolutionaries, and die-hard Marxists. Pushback from conservatives began almost immediately after China began to move away from the planned economy. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was also unenthusiastic about the side effects of these reforms.
Storm
Authors: Blanchette Jude
Published: August 2022

This chapter investigates how the March 4 conference of reform-minded officials and academics was a turning point for Utopia and the broadening coalition of leftist voices in China. For years, they had spoken of shadowy forces working on behalf of the capitalist class to influence, and eventually overthrow, the Communist Party. From this point on, Utopia, and an increasing cohort of competitors and copycats, would embrace a paranoid worldview that saw global conspiracies of Western domination, the infiltration of China and the Party by traitors and “hostile forces,” and a belief in an inevitable and unavoidable conflict with the United States. As they prepared for this coming struggle, they saw Mao Zedong as their secret weapon. The chapter then looks at the publication of Unhappy China: The Great Time, Grand Vision and Our Challenges in 2009, the success of which unnerved the Chinese government, which had long seen grassroots nationalism as a “double-edged sword.” One can imagine that the Party’s larger concern about Unhappy China was less the book itself than the part it played in an expanding populist nationalist and neo-Maoist movement.
Bombard the Headquarters
Authors: Blanchette Jude
Published: August 2022

This chapter assesses how neo-Maoists viewed research on China’s contemporary history as a proxy battle for the country’s political future. There is no such thing as neutral history, they argued, and every utterance about Mao Zedong or the Communist Party’s historical legacy had the effect, intentional or not, of either supporting or attacking the regime. Xi Jinping brooks no tolerance for historical pluralism, and in his fight for conformity, he has presented a new mission for China’s neo-Maoists. Once in power, Xi revived Maoist tools of governance, including a one-year “mass line” campaign to rectify cadre work styles and bring the Party “closer to the people.” To combat historical nihilism, the Party under Xi set out to both crush deviationist historical interpretations and historians and, at the same time, rehabilitate historical figures who had been maligned and marginalized through outright neglect by the Party or worse, by their intentional dethroning for political purposes. While the campaign would penetrate into the deepest and most obscure reaches of Party historiography, it would begin with the PRC’s founding father, Mao Zedong.
Mini-Juggernaut
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter reviews the last months before the Democratic National Convention of July 1976, when Jimmy Carter won enough committed delegates to virtually guarantee him the nomination. His campaign resembled a juggernaut running over such opponents as George Wallace, Lloyd Bentsen, Sargent Shriver, Ted Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, and Morris Udall. In order to win, he especially worked to win Jewish voters and African-American support. He scored wins in Texas, Indiana, Georgia, and the District of Columbia.
The Carters Take New York
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter focuses on the Democratic National Convention in New York City in July 1976 where Jimmy Carter and his family celebrated his easily winning the Democratic nomination for the presidency. His choice of Senator Walter Mondale to be his running mate strengthened the national ticket. The highlight of the convention was a dramatic speech by Congresswoman Barbara Jordan of Texas, who had become famous calling for Richard Nixon’s impeachment following the Watergate scandal. After the convention, the Carters rushed home to Plains to plan for the campaign against the Republican candidate Gerald Ford and to interview candidates for key positions in their administration.
Jimmy, and Rosalynn, Won!
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter considers how, running against an incumbent but unelected president, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter defeated President Gerald Ford by a very slim majority. It shows how Carter excelled against Ford in the presidential debates, but nearly lost the election with an ill-advised interview he gave to Playboy magazine. Confessing to having lusted in his heart, he attempted to explain his religion in human terms. His defense was weak, and he remained vague on the topic of abortion, but his promise never to tell a lie and to establish a government as good as the people won enough votes for him to become president.
The Shadow Presidency
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter reviews Carter’s time between winning the election and the inauguration, when he set up a shadow presidency. Drawing upon his colleagues in the Trilateral Commission, Carter invited candidates for cabinet posts and top advisory positions to Plains. There, Rosalynn Carter and Walter Mondale participated in questioning and evaluating them for a particular post. Carter chose Cyrus Vance to be secretary of state and Zbigniew Brzezinski as national security adviser. He established human rights as the theme of his presidency; he wanted to complete a SALT II treaty with the Soviet Union, and he wanted to bring peace to the Middle East. He and Rosalynn had their administration in place and ready to go to work when they boarded a train called “The Peanut Special” in Plains the day before his inauguration that took them and several hundreds of their relatives and friends to Washington.
One Hundred Days
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter describes President Carter’s first one hundred days in office, during which he gave a fireside chat about the nation’s energy crisis identifying it as the major problem facing the country. He vetoed popular water projects, favored projects that preserved the environment, and searched for a new director of the CIA. He underscored his intention to make human rights the theme of his administration. He brought Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to the White House individually to discuss peace between Israel and Egypt. He appointed a Presidential Commission on Mental Health with Rosalynn serving as honorary chair, and he invited country music star Willie Nelson to the White House. He identified US long-standing ally Iran as a principle abuser of human rights, and he planned to negotiate a new treaty with Panama. He dismissed criticisms of his born-again religion and drunken antics of his brother Billy as irrelevant to his governing style.
Religion, Race, and Politics
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter discusses Jewish and Israeli attitudes to the Carters and the Carters’ stands against racism. It begins by relating how Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter denied that they were anti-Semitic. They nudged Israel toward providing justice for the Palestinians and invited Menachem Begin and Aliza Begin to visit the White House. Begin made clear his defense of Israel, and Aliza showed little interest in forming a personal relationship with Rosalynn. Accused of favoring Blacks in the government and international relations, the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan burned a cross and staged a demonstration in Carter’s hometown of Plains. Carter stood firm in his beliefs, and finally became the president who restored integrity to Dr. Samuel Mudd, who many years earlier had been accused of being a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination.
The Tightrope to Peace
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter considers Carters ongoing efforts to broker peace in the Middle East. In order to bring Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat together at Camp David to negotiate a peace agreement, Carter had to understand each personality and the needs of each nation, convince Jewish-American voters that he was on their side, and balance the US relationship with Arab countries for economic and national security reasons. When he sold F-15 fights jets to Saudi Arabia, Senator Abraham Ribicoff held a closed door meeting with Jewish members of the Senate to convince them that Carter would always keep Israel better armed than its Arab enemies. The chapter also considers problems at home, where he had to deal with Senator Ted Kennedy’s opposition to his national healthcare bill, which weakened Carter’s position in the Democratic party. In addition, although the United States had given asylum to famed Soviet novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian novelist made a powerful speech condemning the degradation of values in the hedonistic and wasteful West. Rosalynn Carter intended to answer him, and did so by defending the progress that the United States had made during the Carter administration.
Miracle at Camp David
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter discusses the Middle East summit hosted by Carter at Camp David. Since for centuries Egypt and Israel had been at war with each other and none who had tried to end it had been successful, the framework for peace that Jimmy Carter, Menachem Begin, and Anwar Sadat drew up at Camp David seemed like a miracle. Carter’s ability to understand the personalities and to find a common ground in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism was the catalyst that helped it work. They also wanted it to work. During the summit they visited the Civil War Battlefield at Gettysburg, a dramatic reminder of the horrors of war. Carter increased security for Sadat at Camp David, shared a Sabbath celebration with the Begins, and welcomed Israel’s decision to make concessions about lands she had held since 1967. Carter’s personal diplomacy worked, and the three men went to the White House and initialed a plan for peace. The wives, especially Rosalynn and Jehan, played a significant role by encouraging their husbands not to give up.
“A Great and Beautiful Job”
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter reviews Carter’s time in office after Camp David. It begins with Speaker Tip O’Neill, who when he complimented the president for “a great and beautiful job,” was not referring to the Camp David agreement but to Carter’s success in getting legislation related to energy and ethical reforms passed. He congratulated him on the miracle at Camp David too, but O’Neill was particularly loyal to the Democratic Party and relished it’s success. The chapter then shows how Carter had no time to rest, because there was a revolution in Iran against the shah and Billy Carter was cutting a possibly illegal deal with Libya. One bright spot was Miss Lillian’s visit with Pope Paul VI in Rome, where she asked him to pray for her son.
Khomeini, Bella, and Rosalynn
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter begins with Ayatollah Khomeini’s return to Tehran from Paris to take charge of Iran and attempt to return it to an Islamic Republic, an action which threatened the US presence there and would require Carter to search for a new relationship with that country. It also shows how, at home, Congresswoman Bella Abzug attempted to ignore the president and criticize him for not paying her sufficient attention; in a very controversial move, Carter fired her as Chair of the National Women’s Committee. The chapter also discusses how Rosalynn supported Carter’s decision and remained strong and up front as she testified before Congress about mental health and urged her husband to fire Secretary Joseph Califano for not supporting her efforts and being disloyal to the administration.
A White House Signing
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter returns to the issue of Middle East peace. It begins by describing how, when Menachem Begin threatened to withdraw from the Camp David agreement, Rosalynn Carter tried in vain to convince his wife Aliza to change his mind. The chapter goes on to show that the Carters decided to make a quick, emergency trip to both Israel and Egypt to urge the principals to follow through with the agreement they had initialed after the Camp David Summit. They had no trouble with Sadat and eventually convinced Begin to keep his word. The chapter ends with the dramatic, highly publicized signing ceremony on the North Lawn of the White House on March 26, 1979.
Kennedys and Terrorists
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter shows that when Ted Kennedy declared that he would be a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, Carter faced a tough challenge that no sitting president had ever faced. A member of his own party wanted to unseat him. Since the Kennedy name and family were powerful, the challenge was particularly difficult. It goes on to show that Carter was forced to call for the resignation of his ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, who had made comments about political prisoners and greeted Palestinians in New York. Finally, when the exiled shah of Iran was diagnosed with a terminal cancer that could only be treated in the United States, Carter knuckled under to pressure from David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger to allow him into the country for medical treatment, which inflamed anti-US sentiment in Iran.
In the Name of God, Iran!
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter relates how, on November 4, 1979, a group of radical Muslim students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and took more than fifty diplomats who worked there hostage. It was the beginning of 444 day stand-off between Carter and the Ayatollah Khomeini that dominated the remainder of the Carter presidency. It shows how Bruce Laingen emerged as leader of the captive hostages, while Charles Kirbo, Colonel Charles Beckwith, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, National Defense Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Carter’s adviser on Iranian affairs Gary Sick, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs David Jones, CIA Director Stansfield Turner, and others, came to prominence. The chapter also discusses Rosalynn Carter, who continued her plan to visit refugee camps in Thailand and perhaps rose to the highest acclaim ever awarded any First Lady. Meanwhile, Ted Kennedy continued his plan to unseat Carter, and Carter continued to manage the government and international diplomacy as he had always done.
The Soviet Union Makes a Move
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter shows how the Soviet Union, taking advantage of the hostage crisis in Iran, moved its troops into Afghanistan on Christmas Eve 1979 and took control of that country. In addition to secretly sending aid to the Afghan resisters, in a dramatic speech Carter issued the “Carter Doctrine” declaring that the US would defend the Persian Gulf area from foreign invasion by whatever means necessary, including the use of nuclear weapons. The Soviets did not attempt to expand beyond Afghanistan, and Carter gave assistance to Pakistan to help keep them contained. The chapter also shows how he proceeded with the SALT II discussions although Brzezinski’s aide Madeleine Albright said that the reduction in weapons would not significantly change anything. Carter punished the Soviets by declaring that US athletes would not participate in the Olympic Games in Moscow and placing an embargo on grain destined for the Soviet Union, all at the cost of losing support at home and among allies.
Hostages and Politics
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter relates the ultimately successful top secret plan, called the “Canadian Caper,” to rescue six US diplomats who had escaped capture by the Iranian students put in place by Carter, the CIA, and the Canadian ambassador to Iran Kenneth Taylor. The chapter then goes on to discuss how Carter dropped his plan to balance the nation’s budget and began a massive, secret build-up of US military power using the most modern technology. Finally, it addresses Ted Kennedy’s campaign to win the Democratic nomination. Carter opted to concentrate on his job as president as long as the hostages remained imprisoned, while Rosalynn took the lead in the campaign.
Delta Force
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter relates how, after negotiating in vain for more than a year for release of the US hostages held in Iran, Carter gave Delta Force the green light to launch a well-planned secret rescue operation. Commanded by Colonel Charles Beckwith and planned by General James Vaught, the group had been rehearsing in the Southwest desert since the hostages had been taken. The chapter also shows that Rosalynn Carter, Walter Mondale, Christopher Warren, Harold Brown, Stansfield Turner, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and David Jones, after being carefully briefed with the details of how the plan would work, all advised Carter to proceed with it. Only Secretary of State Cyrus Vance disagreed. Although carefully launched from Desert One, the malfunction of equipment caused Beckwith to abort the plan. Eight US soldiers died in an accident in the desert as they exited Iran, and an extremely disappointed president addressed the nation early the next day to explain what had happened.
An Uphill Battle
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter relates how, when Ronald Reagan won the Republican nomination instead of Gerald Ford, the Carter campaign prepared for an uphill battle to win reelection. First, he had to get the Democratic nomination from the determined Ted Kennedy, who neither withdrew nor conceded until after Carter had easily won at the Democratic National Convention. It goes on to show that despite the efforts of Tip O’Neill and Robert Strauss to maintain party unity, Kennedy did not cooperate and weakened the Democrats as they went into the national election. Carter scored domestic victories with the Alaska Lands Act and the Mental Health Bill, but the hostages remained in captivity, and the energy crisis was unresolved. Nevertheless, Rosalynn and others in the Carter camp fought long and hard to keep Carter in the White House.
Welcome Home
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter turns to the transition period when, immediately after the election, Jimmy Carter resumed his work as president. He worked harder to win release of the hostages, offering to release the Iranian funds he had impacted in return for their freedom. He succeeded in completing his major accomplishment in saving the environment with the Alaska Lands Act, protecting more land as wilderness than any other president. Warren Christopher, meeting with Algerian mediators in Algiers, completed the negotiations that convinced the Iranians to free the fifty-two remaining US captives, who in violent, dramatic, and emotional events, made their way to Algerian planes ready to fly them to freedom. During the Reagan inauguration ceremonies and allegedly at the moment Reagan was inaugurated, the planes took off for Algeria and Germany. Reagan graciously gave Carter the credit for the negotiations that freed the hostages and provided the former Air Force One to transport him and others to Germany the next day to greet the hostages and welcome them to freedom.
A Place in the World
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter begins the story of the Carters’ lives after the presidency. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter returned to their home in Plains on January 20, 1981 to a tumultuous greeting at the Train Depot, exhausted, disappointed, but determined to find their new place in the world. Carter seemed happy to be free of the responsibilities of the presidency, but Rosalynn drifted into a deep depression that lasted for months. Soon, they became involved in selling the Carter peanut warehouse, renting their farms, writing their autobiographies, giving a few speeches, and traveling. Virtual outcasts in the Democratic Party they attended very few party events. They did join other former presidents to attend the funeral of Anwar Sadat after his assassination. His death was a personal loss to them because of their close friendship with him and his wife Jehan since the earliest days of his presidency. During that journey, Carter bonded with his former opponent Gerald Ford in a friendship that would inform their post-presidencies. Jimmy and Rosalynn were also already exploring a way to continue the major theme of their presidency, promoting peace and human rights in the world.
Servant of Peace
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter reviews how, in late 1994, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter embarked upon three major peace missions in North Korea, Haiti, and Bosnia. Using personal diplomacy with the leader of North Korea and his wife, they got a commitment to freeze development of nuclear weapons, return to discussions with the United States, and return the remains of US soldiers who had died in Korea during the Korean war. In Haiti, Carter, Colin Powell, and Senator Sam Nunn succeeded in convincing the military junta to allow the democratically elected ruler return to power before President Bill Clinton launched a military invasion to force them to do so. Jimmy and Rosalynn’s greatest challenge came in Bosnia, where, after intense discussions with the White House, they journeyed to negotiate a cease fire in a bloody war that had been raging for several years. Often traveling in dangerous conditions, they persuaded Radovan Karadzic, Slobodan Milosovic, and Alija Izetbegovic to sign a cease fire that ultimately made a peace treaty possible.
Tyrants, Books, and Mr. Earl
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter shows how Carter came under heavy criticism for his willingness to consult with tyrants and dictators in Africa and among the PLO in order to bring them to the negotiating table. He became associated with the Cooperative Baptists who were more liberal that the Southern Baptist Convention, worked to free elections in Chinese villages, and journeyed with Rosalynn to Panama to participate in the ceremony returning the canal to the Panamanians. His books Always and Reckoning and Other Poems and An Hour before Daylight revealed much about his relationship with his father and how he resembled Mr. Earl in his relationship with his own sons. As Carter reviewed his life, time and again his father emerges as his primary molding parent and the one he most wanted to please. An Hour before Daylight is his magnum opus, not only as a memoir but as a sociological and historical account of the South on the eve of the Civil Rights movement and end of the Jim Crow Era.
The Nobel Prize
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter relates how, in the fall of 2002, Carter finally won the Nobel Peace Prize. A candidate since he had brokered the Camp David Accords in 1978, he had been passed over several times. After receiving the phone call, Carter made his first public appearance in Plains where he explained that he had won and listed some of the reasons why, but he retained the humility that had characterized most of his life, giving equal credit to Rosalynn and to the Carter Center. He immediately began to draft his speech with the help of Rosalynn and his trusted advisers. When he went to Oslo in December to claim the prize, in addition to his family and staff from the Carter Center, he invited African-American diva Jessye Norman from Augusta, Georgia, to sing at the ceremony and his friend Willie Nelson to perform during the festivities. In his acceptance speech, he reviewed his and Rosalynn’s work as well as that of the Carter Center. He notably praised the Muslim Anwar Sadat and the Jew Yitzhak Rabin who had given their lives in the cause of peace. Obliquely referring to his own allegedly Christian country, he emphasized that the growing chasm between rich and poor was the cause of many of the world’s troubles, including war. “We must work together for peace,” he proclaimed, before hurrying back to Atlanta to resume his work with the Carter Center.
Tuned to the World
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter relates how, when a guide on a fishing trip with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter commented that she was “tuned to the world,” he accurately described how well she and her husband battled for peace, freedom, and basic human rights. They traveled from Venezuela to Africa to Israel to Japan and China and back to Plains and Atlanta doing the same work, taking the same message, ignoring their critics, and raising money they needed to help the Carter Center grow into a large and powerful peacekeeping institution. Carter condemned President George W. Bush’s war with Iraq as unjustified, Rosalynn held mental health symposia at the center, and both of them urged Israel to make permanent peace with the Palestinians. When the US government had announced that it would honor Carter by naming a new, powerful submarine for him, Carter had declared, as he had when president, that such power was necessary to guarantee peace in the world. When christening it, Rosalynn slashed as much champagne on Carter the man as Carter the submarine.
Endangered Values and Apartheid in Palestine
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter shows how Carter’s anger with President George W. Bush’s pro-war foreign policy and Israel’s stance against Palestinian freedom exploded in 2005 and 2006 in two of his most popular books. Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis protested Bush’s pre-emptive war against Iraq, lie about the existence of weapons of mass destruction, and use of torture techniques against the enemy. It particularly condemned the alliance of Republican politicians with conservative religious leaders. Carter questioned what had happened to the separation of church and state and reminded his readers that Thomas Jefferson had argued that in a free country there must be a wall of separation between church and state. Palestine Peace Not Apartheid stirred a hornet’s nest of criticism by condemning the concrete wall constructed between Israeli and Palestinians areas, the creation of Jewish settlements to drive out Palestinians, and Israel’s general refusal to discuss peace and separate statehood with the Palestinians. By using the word “apartheid,” he suggested that Israel practiced a cruel form of segregation similar to that in South Africa. Carter defended himself but did not back down from use of the word, and critics who did not understand him again labeled him anti-Semitic. Carter continued his work for peace, joined a group of former Nobel Peace Prize laureates called The Elders, and wrote another book, Beyond the White House, in which the influence of his father on his own life again loomed large.
Journey into Eternity
Authors: Godbold Jr. E. Stanly
Published: August 2022

This chapter relates how, at the age of eight-six, Carter went with The Elders to Gaza, the West Bank, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Israel in his unending search for peace in the Holy Land. He would not rest, he said, until Israel and Egypt were reconciled and the last guinea worm was exterminated. But he and Rosalynn traveled less, and he was more often found in Plains on Sunday mornings teaching a Sunday School class at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, which attracted visitors from across the country and around the world who wanted to hear him related a biblically based message to his history and to current events. He and Rosalynn wrote Op-ed pieces, occasionally gave speeches, and he published a moving autobiography, A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety. When Rosalynn was recovering from a life-threatening surgery, he wrote Faith: A Journey for All. Although age, health issues, a pandemic, the waxing of conservative US politics, forced his and Rosalynn’s retreat to their home in Plains, he made his voice known with brief public statements and occasional cameo appearance at his home. He and Rosalynn celebrated their seventy-fifth wedding anniversary on July 7, 2021, and in 2022 their Carter Center that waged peace, fought disease, and promoted democracy around the world was a living institution that sealed their reputations as giants among peacemakers and humanitarians.
Democracy's Child
Authors: Gash Alison L. , Tichenor Daniel J.
Published: August 2022

Democracy’s Child places young people at the heart of pivotal conflicts, decisions, and transformations in US politics. From the March for Our Lives and Black Lives Matter, to Gay Straight Alliances and the Dreamer and Sunrise movements, the prominence of young people as agents of change are unmistakable in contemporary political life. Yet as the book shows, these movements reflect a long history of youth political mobilization and leadership, including Progressive Era labor organizing and 1960s civil rights and anti-war activism. Children also are crucial subjects of government and adult control, inspiring contention in nearly every realm of public policy, such as education, social welfare, abortion, gun control, immigration, civil rights and liberties, and criminal justice. And young people are regularly leveraged in political life as influential symbols of innocence and deviance, or treated as political collateral (as the spectacle of “kids in cages” under the Trump administration’s “family separation” policy vividly captures). In a narrative that ranges from history and law to young adult literature, Democracy’s Child reveals why the control, leveraging, and agency of young people shapes and defines our political landscape. Along the way, the book provides information about age or childhood as a potent category that combines with gender, race, class, immigration status, or sexual orientation to produce powerful systems of privilege or disadvantage.
Natural Law and Ethical Necessity
Authors: Sachedina Abdulaziz
Published: August 2022

The chapter undertakes to further establish a natural connection between juridical methodology and Islamic ethics in interpretive jurisprudence. It elaborates juridical theology based on humanity’s equality in decoding the basic moral law infused in human nature through reason. Islamic political theology, with its goal of establishing a just public order, laid the doctrinal groundwork for the Muslim community to work toward reaching a consensus about the need for a peaceful and just relationship with other faith communities on the basis of common human nature under the universal divine law of justice. Nonetheless, even though coercion in the matter of one’s choice of spiritual path was ruled out, the Qur’an did not overlook the necessity of providing some workable principle like universal human nature (fit}ra) to serve as a foundation for what is good and what we ought to do to manage just interhuman relations.
The Ethics of Interpretive Jurisprudence
Authors: Sachedina Abdulaziz
Published: August 2022

This chapter relates law and ethics to highlight the ethical presuppositions of legal methodology. Legal theory derives its epistemology from philosophical theology and the critical study of traditional materials used to provide reliable textual information to formulate judicial decisions. Philosophical theology (kala>m) and juridical methodology have undertaken to relate ethics to divinely ordained orthopraxy as a major part of justificatory reasoning for the derivation of rulings dealing with social ethics. However, traditional revelation-based jurisprudence (al-ijtiha>d al-shar‘ī) has adamantly resisted any suggestion that it needs to strike a partnership with and be guided by the secularity of interpretive ethics (al-ijtihad al-‘aqlī) to infer morally sound and universally applicable ethical and religious opinions.
Hellenism in the Distance
Authors: Kirkland N. Bryant
Published: August 2022

This chapter studies Herodotean evocations in Dio Chrysostom’s Borystheniticus (Or. 36). Although the Borystheniticus has long been recognized as situating itself in the Herodotean mold, this chapter argues that the Herodotean backdrop is far from straightforward; indeed, ambiguous hypotextual activations of Herodotus’s Scythian logos inflect the oration from start to finish and are essential to its meaning. The oration’s climax, in which Dio claims to quote a myth of the Persian Magi on the cycles of cosmic history, presents a world in flux, in echo of the historical cycles of Herodotus’s text, and permits the Magi to speak with historiographic authority. That the myth itself has been shown to be Greek, not Persian, ironizes the whole operation, allowing Dio to sound Herodotean while also rearticulating the Hellenic usurpation of alien wisdom.
Acts of God
Authors: Kirkland N. Bryant
Published: August 2022

This chapter analyzes Herodotean presences in Pausanias’s Periegesis with a particular focus on the reception of Herodotean views on divinity, fortune, and human happiness. It analyzes intratextual patterns in Herodotus before turning to Pausanias’s intertextual echoes of the same. It demonstrates how the interpretation of natural disasters in both writers shows their attempt to balance rationalizing inquiry with asseverations about the role of the divine. The chapter also reveals how Pausanias’s motifs of divine justice allow him to comment on the fate of prominent individuals such as Sulla as well as on collectivities and cities. The chapter ultimately argues that Pausanias’s structuring of his work according to Herodotean patterns leads to interpretive ambiguity: Pausanias’s Herodoteanism not only archaizes but also speaks obliquely to the future.
When Metaphor Becomes Myth
Authors: Lesch Charles H.T.
Published: August 2022

This chapter revaluates Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s democratic theory of solidarity by revealing the religious sources behind his most important political concept: the “general will.” The chapter begins by probing Rousseau’s account of the causes of social pathology and his program for solidarity. It then examines Rousseau’s philosophy of free will and its relationship to the general will. Finally, it shows how Rousseau developed the general will by secularizing three concepts from the theologian Nicolas Malebranche: divine occasionalism becomes the act of voting; the “general will of God” becomes the “general will of the citizen”; and the “good of humanity” becomes the “good of the state.” Yet Rousseau’s political theology contains a religious remainder. As a theological concept, the general will rests on a model of divine agency. But no comparable form of agency can originate from the body politic. The result is a logical dependency of the general will on its theological origins that vitiates Rousseau’s democratic program for solidarity.
The Kernel of Unreason at the Heart of Enlightenment
Authors: Lesch Charles H.T.
Published: August 2022

This chapter uncovers theological elements in Immanuel Kant’s ethical theory of solidarity by analyzing a core feature of his moral philosophy: spontaneity. By examining his unpublished, “silent decade” writings, the chapter demonstrates that Kant, far from abandoning his early interest in Rousseauian politics for pure philosophy, realized that the two were inexorably linked: he developed spontaneity not only to guarantee freedom, as is often argued, but also to better realize social solidarity. The chapter then shows how Kant assembled spontaneity by secularizing ideas from theology. Human spontaneity is like a miracle. And the source of that spontaneity—the self, or “I”—is like God. Finally, the chapter offers a new reading of Kant’s political theory, describing how he built a new theory of solidarity centered around spontaneity—“the ethical community”—in his late work on religion. It concludes by arguing that Kant’s political theology contains religious remainders that threaten its rational integrity.
The “Other” and the “I”
Authors: Lesch Charles H.T.
Published: August 2022

This chapter offers a new reading of Emmanuel Levinas to develop solidarity as sacrifice, an original account of liberalism’s moral psychology and concept of the self. The chapter begins by uncovering the crucial place of Alexandre Kojève’s interpretation of Hegel for how Levinas diagnoses solidarity’s pathologies. Kojève reveals to Levinas that nonrational solidarity is both necessary for liberalism and dangerous. The chapter then illustrates how Levinas navigates this tension by turning to classical Jewish thought. First, he looks to medieval Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides’ negative theology. By apprehending people as having their own kind of “holiness,” Levinas argues, we forge a solidarity that transcends reason without the dangers of irrationalism. Second, he draws from biblical ideas about sacrifice to develop a striking new theory of how the self develops. The “I,” Levinas insists, is something we must earn through concrete acts of sacrifice for other people. We develop moral personalities attuned to power asymmetries, committed to others, and sensitive to vulnerability.
Technology Transfer and Trade Tariffs
Authors: Orlik Thomas
Published: August 2022

This chapter points out that the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the U.S. in World War II pushed China’s rulers to develop their own nuclear capability. It elaborates how the threat of mutual destruction seen by China as the only guarantee against the threat of U.S. imperialism. It also recounts how China completed the march toward nuclear status by detonating a 22-kiloton device in in the deserts of Xinjiang in the Northwest of the country. The chapter highlights Hu Jintao’s inheritance of an economy primed for growth, outlining China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation, closure of thousands of state-owned enterprises, and clean-up of bad loans in the banking system. It details what China had done to move up the value chain, which was critical to sustaining its rise toward high income status.
The Bubble and the Virus
Authors: Orlik Thomas
Published: August 2022

This chapter refers to the time U.S. and China inked a “phase one” trade deal on January 15, 2020, which drew a line under years of rising tariffs and shrinking goodwill. It points out the strangeness of the year 2020 that started on a note of optimism but ended with the biggest loss of life since World War II and the biggest drop in global output since the Great Depression. It also recounts how President Donald Trump settled for forcing China to buy a few tons more soybeans and cubic meters of liquified natural gas as the hostilities of the trade war ended. The chapter discusses the price for the combination of reflexive secrecy and local incompetence that marred China’s initial response to the Covid crisis, which in the end proved heartbreakingly high. It details how the Chinese government aimed to monopolize information on the outbreak, reprimanding Dr. Li Wenliang.
Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine
Authors: Way Lucan Ahmad
Published: August 2022

Chapter 5 discusses the (limited) democratic success of Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, and the oscillations between “democratic moments” and more authoritarian periods, which stem from a combination of three factors. First, authoritarian weakness has prevented the more hard-core authoritarian rulers from consolidating power. Potential autocrats have not been able to consistently rely on coercive forces to repress challengers, and their partisan support base has been fickle. Second, media and parties from the authoritarian periods have remained on the scene, ensuring that the opposition can spring back from temporary defeats. Third, although Russia has exerted pressure on these countries to enter its authoritarian sphere, a modicum of Western influence has made it costly for rulers to engage in the most egregious abuses of power.
The Puzzle of Timor-Leste
Authors: Bermeo Nancy
Published: August 2022

Chapter 6 explores the situation in Timor-Leste, where democracy has survived as a result of changes to the polity and its leaders that took place over the course of a brief civil war and a long war for independence from Indonesia. First, the country’s anti-democratic political and economic elites were so brutalized by Indonesia’s occupation that they either disappeared from the scene or gave themselves over to a new, democratic mindset. Second, the independence struggle forged a unified and inclusive national identity that helped overcome the ethnic and ideological cleavages that had contributed to their prior vulnerability to Indonesian aggression. Third, the war gave rise to a broad array of heroic political leaders with viable electoral constituencies, resulting in a pluralistic post-independence political landscape. Finally, the exigencies of the national struggle forced militias to coalesce into a national army divorced from any one political party and subordinate to the authority of democratically elected leaders.
Meritocratic Empires?
Authors: Guha Sumit
Published: August 2022

This chapter argues that in South Asian governance ca.1600–1947, the creation of a meritocratic state that draws from talent across society was subordinated to more pressing issues of political management. The most important was ensuring compliance and fealty. The chapter briefly considers the place of merit, favor, and loyalty under three regimes: the Mughal Empire; the East India Company government that successfully took over the Mughal realm after 1760, and the British imperial administrative establishment created in the mid-nineteenth century. The basic structure of the British bureaucracy has been inherited by later governments in India and Pakistan in 1947.
Introduction
Authors: Yakherds The
Published: August 2022

This chapter situates the debate within the Buddhist history of ideas and draws parallels with contemporary epistemology. It introduces the main protagonists: Taktsang Sherab Rinchen, Tsongkhapa, Khedrupjé, Panchen Losang Chögyen, Jamyang Shepa, Purchok Ngawang Jampa, Mikyö Dorjé, and Wangchuk Dorjé. It charts the fault lines in the debate and what’s at stake for Buddhist thought and practice, particularly the problems global error theory raises for any attempt to develop a coherent theory of knowledge. We begin with the Indian antecedents of the controversy, examining how disputes regarding the proper interpretation of Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti unfolded in India and then were transmitted and expanded in Tibet. The “A Word about Words” section analyses key terms in Sanskrit and Tibetan that will appear in the rest of the study: problems with translating them into English, their etymologies, and nuances that are crucial for understanding the implications of the stances adopted by the debate’s protagonists.
The Philosophical Issues at Stake
Authors: Yakherds The
Published: August 2022

This chapter examines the significance of the debate sparked by Taktsang and subsequently pursued by his opponents and supporters, all of whom attempt to reconcile problems that arose in the interpretation of the doctrines of emptiness and the two truths. This task is crucially important for the enterprise of Buddhist philosophy and practice. What does it mean to describe relative (or conventional) truth as “truth,” given that all perceptions of ordinary beings are overlaid by fundamental error? If buddhas only perceive reality as it is, how could they share the erroneous cognitions of nonawakened beings? And if they do not know conventions, does this undermine the Buddhist doctrine of their omniscience (sarvajñatā)? We examine the implications of Taktsang’s “three contexts”—the unexamined and unanalyzed, slight analysis, and thorough analysis—and evaluate whether they are able to do the philosophical work he requires for his system of philosophy and practice.
The Gelukpas and Their Opponents
Authors: Yakherds The
Published: August 2022

This chapter begins with an examination of the historical and political background of the controversy, particularly conflicts between Gelukpas and Sakyapas fighting for power in central Tibet. Following Tsongkhapa’s death in 1419, the Gelukpas became increasingly powerful, and they challenged the hegemony of the Sakyapas, who had ruled Tibet as regents of the Mongol Empire during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Karma Kagyüpas—who would later become key protagonists in the debate and would uphold and expand Taktsang’s critique—were also central players who opposed the Gelukpas philosophically and politically. We examine polemical moves by the Gelukpas, including a curious document attributed to Taktsang in which he purportedly recanted his youthful errors in attacking Tsongkhapa and identified himself as a devotee of the Geluk founder. This short work is only found in Gelukpa sources and appears to be an attempt to defang Taktsang’s challenge by insinuating that he came to recognize his errors and embrace Tsongkhapa’s system.
Panchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen’s Response
Authors: Yakherds The
Published: August 2022

This chapter examines the first major Gelukpa response to Taktsang, Panchen Losang Chögyen’s Lion’s Roar of Scripture and Reasoning. We explore how he provides point-by-point rebuttals to each of Taktsang’s “contradictions.” We begin with an overview of the arguments put forward by both Taktsang and the Panchen Lama, and then evaluate how successful the latter is in his rebuttal. In a number of places he mischaracterizes Taktsang’s position or attributes to him ideas that he does not endorse or explicitly rejects. Nonetheless, much of the Panchen Lama’s response has philosophical traction, although he fails to score a definitive checkmate of his opponent. The Panchen Lama’s charge that Taktsang’s approach would lead to an antinomianism that is incompatible with Buddhist ethics and karma theory is particularly important: if there is no reliable truth, then how can ordinary beings have confidence in any judgments or in Buddhist principles?
From Three Contexts to None
Authors: Yakherds The
Published: August 2022

This chapter examines treatises written by the eighth and ninth Karmapas, Mikyö Dorjé and Wangchuk Dorjé, in defense of Taktsang. Wangchuk Dorjé outlines a radical approach to Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka: Mādhyamikas hold no positions and only engage in debate through the use of reductio arguments. Even this statement is not a position, but rather a description of the Prāsaṅgika approach. Any statement is only made “from the perspective of others” and implies no philosophical or doctrinal commitments on the part of Mādhyamikas. Madhyamaka denies everything, and then rejects denial. No positive statement or philosophical claim can legitimately be part of Madhyamaka qua Madhyamaka.
Unforgotten Dreams
Authors: Yakherds The
Published: August 2022

The focus of this chapter is Purchok Ngawang Jampa’s response to Taktsang. Purchok begins with an appeal to meditative experience: Taktsang, he claims, overestimated his own level of understanding, and this is the basis for his erroneous claims regarding Tsongkhapa’s system. Tsongkhapa was an emanation of Mañjuśrī (the bodhisattva of wisdom), and so was inerrant in his presentation of Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka; but Taktsang, as a beginner in meditation, failed to grasp the subtleties of Tsongkhapa’s philosophy. Purchok then moves to the most philosophically interesting parts of his response. He defends the notion that Prāsaṅgika is antifoundationalist and argues that valid knowledge of conventional reality can be found through nonfoundational epistemic instruments. Purchok adopts an “anthropological approach”: he relativizes warrant to the proper functioning of epistemic instruments. Epistemology is not prescriptive, but rather descriptive of the way we discuss and define justification.