Dream the Size of Freedom : How African Liberation Mobilized New Left Internationalism.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Parrott, R. Joseph.

Series:

Power, Politics, and the World Series

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (424 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025.

Summary:

How anti-colonial movements in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau reshaped US activist engagement with the Global South from the 1960s through the 1970sDream the Size of Freedom explores how anti-colonial movements in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau reshaped US activist engagement with the Global South from the 1960s through the 1970s and influenced American foreign policy as the Vietnam War drew to a close. These Portuguese African liberation movements, led by nationalists like Eduardo Mondlane and Amílcar Cabral, built global solidarity networks to support their military and social challenges to empire while defending against Western intervention. US activists disillusioned with the Cold War came to see African self-determination as central to global campaigns for racial and economic justice. A broad coalition ranging from Black Power radicals to religious liberals mobilized against the North Atlantic alliance with Portugal. In the process, this grassroots movement helped define a New Left Internationalism that championed decentralized, multiracial organizing and a collaborative vision of US foreign policy to redress historic inequalities between Global North and South.Drawing on more than fifty oral histories and research in government and activist archives on three continents in English, Portuguese, French, and Afrikaans, R. Joseph Parrott reconstructs the transnational anti-imperial network that injected Global South priorities into US political debates. Popular protests and informational campaigns led to collaborations with legislators eager to constrain the powerful executive branch. In 1976, this grassroots-legislative alliance halted Gerald Ford’s anti-communist intervention against the Soviet-backed government of newly independent Angola. This victory of New Left Internationalist ideas anticipated future anti-apartheid and Latin American peace movements while also fueling a conservative revival of Cold War containment. By exploring US engagement with the contested process of African decolonization, Dream the Size of Freedom highlights the origins of two contrasting visions of American foreign policy that defined debates over the country’s proper role in the Global South into the 1990s.

Contents:

Cover

Series page

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

Contents

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations

Introduction

Pert I Cold War Revolutions

Chapter 1. The Angolan Crisis of 1961

Chapter 2. A Tale of Two Lobbies

Chapter 3. The Limits of Cold War Liberalism

Chapter 4. Fighting for Southern Africa

Part II Grassroots Solidarity

Chapter 5. The Religious and Radical Origins of Solidarity

Chapter 6. Transforming Established Institutions

Chapter 7. Forging Pan-AfricanSolidarity

Chapter 8. The Interracial Coalition Politics of the Gulf Boycott

Part III Institutionalizing New Left Internationalism

Chapter 9. A Precedent Against Intervention

Chapter 10. Cold War Crucible

Conclusion

Notes

Index

Acknowledgments.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781512827682

1512827681

OCLC:

1500267299