Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935-1960

by Brenda Gayle Plummer

African Americans have a long history of active involvement and interest in international affairs, but their efforts have been largely ignored by scholars of American foreign policy. Gayle Plummer brings a new perspective to the study of twentieth-century American history with her analysis of black Americans' engagement with international issues, from the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 through the wave of African independence movements of the early 1960s.

Genres: History

442 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1996

Reviews

[Matthew Rohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal. This book's framing of US foreign policy around the interests and activism of African Americans, combined with the interesting periodization running from the Italo-Ethiopian War through the Suez Crisis and first wave of decolonization (but before the peak of the Civil Rights Movement in the US) is an incredibly well sourced perspective on midcentury US foreign policy in which the central issue on the global stage, both pre and post war, is the global color line of colonialism. Rising Wind is within a very small circle of book such as Westad's The Global Cold War, Beckert's Empire of Cotton, and Lake and Reynolds' Drawing the Global Colour Line, that seamlessly reframe traditional narratives of international relations by presenting their research. I can't recommend this book enough for anyone interested in US foreign policy, decolonization, or American racial politics