2nd time Flashcards
Allende, Salvador
Chilean political leader born in Valparaiso, Chile. The first
Socialist to be elected Chilean president (1970 -1973), Allende nationalized many major
Chilean businesses in many domains, including mining, and notably including U.S. owned
companies. Allende was killed during a coup, which many have held to have been prompted
by the American Central Intelligence Agency. This coup led to the decades-long rule of the
dictator Augusto Pinochet. Allende remains a hero to many on the political left worldwide.
Chiang Kai-shek
Chinese statesman and military leader, who was a pivotal figure
in the history of modern China. Chiang participated in numerous revolts against the ruling
Quing (or Manchu) dynasty, and eventually became leader of modern China in the late
1920s. Chiang led China in resistance to Communist guerrillas from the 1930s on, and
against brutal Japanese aggression from 1937 to 1945. In 1949, China fell to the
Communists under Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Chiang fled to Taiwan where he
established a strong modernizing government, remaining President until his death.
Gandhi, Indira
Indian political leader. As leader of India’s powerful Congress
political party, Gandhi served as Prime Minister of India for four terms, 1966-1977 and
1980-1984. Her rule is remembered for India’s military defeat of Pakistan in 1971, the
explosion of a nuclear bomb in 1974, struggles against ethnic separatism within India, and
continued state-directed economic initiatives. She was assassinated in 1984 by her Sikh
bodyguards in the aftermath of a controversial assault on the holiest Sikh shrine in Amritsar,
which has been occupied by separatists. Despite her name, she is not related to Mohandas
K. Gandhi. Rather, she was the only child of independent India’s first Prime Minister,
Jawaharlal Nehru.
Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich
Soviet political leader and reformer. Gorbachev
graduated in law from Moscow State U., joined the Communist Party in 1952, and rose to its
Central Committee by 1971. From 1978-1985 he directed Soviet agriculture. In 1985 he
became Secretary General of the Communist Party, the highest position in the USSR, and
led an unprecedented campaign of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness), to cut
stagnation, bureaucracy, and repression. Noted for his forceful personality and stylish wife
Raisa, Gorbachev’s reforms succeeded too well. The Soviet-bloc states from East Germany
to Bulgaria overthrew their regimes in 1989-90. In 1991, the fifteen Soviet republics from
Estonia to Kazakhstan left the USSR. The Soviet Union was no more. Gorbachev lost
power, and the remainder state of Russia was led by Boris Yeltsin
Guevara, Ernesto “Che
Buenos Aires in 1947 and graduated as a physician in 1953. Travelled throughout South
America, settling in Guatemala and learning Marxist theory. Exiled from Guatemala and
began to help Fidel Castro train guerrilla soldiers for a takeover of Cuba. Became second in
command to Castro in Cuba until Castro withdrew his support in 1965. From there Che tried
to start other leftist popular revolts worldwide, including in the Congo and then in Bolivia in
1967. He was captured and shot in his attempted revolution in Bolivia, on Oct. 9th, 1967.
Havel, Václav
The last President of Czechoslovakia and first President of the Czech
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Republic (1989-2003) as well as a prominent writer and dramatist. He began political
dissidence in the 1960s, circa the Prague Spring, writing against Communist policies. His
work was then banned in Czechoslovakia. He continued to write and in 1977, he co-founded
Charter 77, which spoke on behalf of the Czechoslovak people against the Communist
government and resultant human rights oppression. During the 1980s, Havel was frequently
imprisoned for his writings and activism. He was a leading figure of the Velvet Revolution
in 1989, which brought about the end of Communist rule, whereupon he was promptly
elected president due to his stature and moral authority
Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah
Iranian Shiite Muslim religious leader. Criticisms
of the Iranian Shah, Reza Pahlevi led to his exile in 1964. He developed a strong following
in Iraq until forced to leave in 1978 by Saddam Hussein, and then moved to France. From
France, he directed a general strike and then the revolution that deposed Muhammad Reza
Shah Pahlevi. Khomeini then returned to Iran in 1979 to declare an Islamic republic,
becoming the supreme religious and political ruler of Iran for the remainder of his life
Mao Zedong
Chinese Marxist theorist, soldier, and political
leader. Born into a strong peasant family, Mao began revolutionary activity in the 1920s.
Throughout the 1930s, he led a legendary peasant revolution featuring “the Long March”
and took control of China by 1948, remaining its leader to his death. He revolutionized,
organized, and collectivized tens of millions of peasants, at the cost of millions lives. He
promoted a cult of personality around himself and his “little Red Book” of sayings, and
directed great intellectual and cultural repressions. China has since recognized his
importance but criticized aspects of his rule
Nkrumah, Kwame
African political leader, prime minister and president, educated
at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and in England, where he helped organize the Pan
African Congress of 1945. He founded the Convention Peoples Party in 1948, and from
1947 to 1957 led resistance to British Colonial rule of the Gold Coast, which received
independence and changed its name to Ghana in 1957. He helped found the continent-wide
Organization of African Unity, but in 1964 formed a one-party state with himself as
president-for-life. Overthrown and exiled in 1966, he spent the rest of his years in exile,
mainly in Guinea, and died in Romania in 1972.
Senghor, Leopold
born in French West Africa, (now Senegal). Poet and statesman,
president of Senegal from 1960 to 1980. As a student, he won a scholarship to France, where
he and other writers formulated the concept of “negritude” as the artistic and literary
expression of black African experience and heritage. As president of Senegal, Senghor
worked for African unity and modernization. He published many major volumes of poetry,
political, and cultural essays, blending African and European thought, and belonged to the
prestigious Académie Française
Stalin, Joseph
An ethnic Georgian Born in Gori, Georgia, Russian Empire, died in
Moscow, Russia, USSR. Early assistant to Lenin in forming the Soviet Union. From 1922
until his death General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics (USSR), over which he had complete control from 1928. Stalin was a despotic
ruler who presided over famines, state terror, an unimaginably costly victory over Germany
in World War II, and the start of the Cold War. More than any other he molded the statist
features that characterized the Soviet regime, turned it into a world power, and shaped
eastern Europe after World War II.
Thatcher, Margaret
British politician. Educated at Oxford as a chemist, Thatcher
became involved in politics in the 1950s, and later gained leading roles in the Conservative
Party. In 1979, she became the first British female prime minister, serving consecutive terms
and retiring in 1990. Her leadership was characterized by a rolling-back of the leftist welfare
state. She led Britain to a more severe, individualistic, less state run economy and society,
and was seen (along with Ronald Reagan) as a leading conservative throughout the 1980s.
Under Thatcher Britain was also active in international affairs, and fought against Argentina
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to retain the Falkland Islands. Known as the Iron Lady, she was elevated to the House of
Lords in the 1990s
Wilson, Thomas Woodrow
28th president of the United States (1913-21). An
academic and former president of Princeton University, Wilson led the U.S. into WWI and
became the creator and leading advocate of the League of Nations, one of the earliest
worldwide political organizations. Awarded the 1919 Nobel Prize for Peace, and a noted
proponent of transparency in international relations. During his presidency the Nineteenth
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting voting rights to women, was adopted
X, Malcolm
African-American political leader. Born in Nebraska, Malcolm Little
(he later dropped his “slave name,” and took “X” to symbolize his lost African identity) was
raised in poverty and turned early to crime. While in prison he joined the Nation of Islam
(the “Black Muslims”), an African American variant of Islam. After parole he became a
leader of the Nation, and a major public figure whose incendiary rhetoric against white
power galvanized millions. Late in his life he traveled to Mecca, renounced violence, joined
traditional Islam, changed his name to El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, and was assassinated
allegedly by agents of the Nation of Islam. His Autobiography of Malcolm X (written with
Alex Haley) was published shortly after his death and remains a literary-political monument
Zapata, Emiliano
Mexican revolutionary leader and agrarian reformer. Born in
Annecuilco, Mexico, Zapata was a champion of rural and indigenous (i.e. Indian) Mexican
peoples, and led the Mexican Revolution which overthrew dictator Porfirio Diaz in 1911.
Zapata continued to fight independently for further agrarian reforms and recognition of the
rights of Mexican peasants until he was killed by the Mexican government men in 1919.
Since his death, he has become a symbol of indigenous and peasant resistance worldwide.
The current Chiapas “Zapatista” resistance is the most recent example
Ali, Muhammad
was born Cassius Marcellus Clay on Jan. 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky.
He started boxing at twelve and went pro six years later, in 1960, after having won a gold
medal in boxing at the 1960 Rome Olympics. His conversion to Islam in 1964 resulted in
both a name change and his refusal to serve in the Vietnam war. Ali reasoned famously that
“no Viet Cong ever called me a nigger.” Ali was charged with draft evasion and stripped of
his title and his license to box, but these decisions were later reversed, and he regained the
heavyweight championship. Perhaps the greatest boxer of all time, Ali once claimed that he
could “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”
Arendt, Hannah
German-born Jewish American political theorist, noted for her
writings on totalitarianism. Born in Hannover, Germany, she escaped Nazis and became a
US citizen in 1951. Taught at numerous major American universities, including Chicago and
the New School for Social Research in New York. Her most prominent writings are The
Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), where she discussed totalitarianism, imperialism, and
anti-Semitism, The Human Condition (1958) and Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963)
Baryshnikov, Mikhail
Born in Latvia (then part of the Soviet Union) of Russian
parents, Baryshnikov was recognized as the leading ballet dancer in the world by the late
1960s. In 1974 he defected to the West while touring Canada with the Bolshoi Ballet. He
has lived in New York ever since. Since his defection, he has been a major force as a
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dancer, choreographer and artistic director. Since the late 1980s, Baryshnikov has largely
left classical ballet for the field of modern dance. He is arguably the most famous dancer of
the twentieth century.
Beckett, Samuel
Born 1906, Dublin, died 1989, Paris, after having lived there for roughly fifty
years. Playwright, novelist, and sometime poet who typically wrote in French and translated
himself back into English. Nobel Prize for literature in 1969. Beckett’s spare, haunting,
unadorned writings concentrated on the fundamental questions of human existence; he felt
obligated to abandon high “literature” and style to express the deep anguish of the human
condition. His major works include the plays Waiting for Godot (1953), Endgame (1957)
Beauvoir, Simone de
French pioneering feminist, existential philosopher, novelist,
and essayist, Paris born and resident all her life. A pioneering feminist thinker, Beauvoir
wrote on philosophical, social, cultural and political problems, especially concerning the
status of women. Beauvoir was a lifelong companion of Jean-Paul Sartre. Her two volume
treatise Le deuxième sexe (1949, The Second Sex) is among the first and most widely read
feminist documents.
Bohr, Neils
Danish physicist. Bohr’s theory of the structure of the atom built on
the earlier nucleus-plus-electrons view, and proposed a “quantum theory” that held that
electrons may be found at different energy levels but exist in no fixed state. Nobel prize for
physics in 1922. In 1940 he fled Copenhagen because of the advancing Nazis and moved to
Los Alamos, New Mexico to advise on the development of the first atomic bomb. However,
he later became a strong opponent of nuclear proliferation.
Einstein, Albert
Perhaps the most significant physicist since Isaac Newton.
German-born and Jewish, Einstein received his PhD from Zurich in 1905, the same year he
published three famous papers which transformed the understanding of the world. The
second discussed the nature of light, and the third, on special relativity, argued for the
equivalency of energy and mass, the importance of observer position, and more. Published
the general theory of relativity in 1916, received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921, left
Europe for the US during the rise of Nazism in the late 1930s, and devoted the rest of his life
to physics and the promotion of world peace.
Fanon, Frantz
. French West Indian psychiatrist, political theorist/writer, and leading
revolutionary thinker of his time. Fanon took his M.D. in France in the early 1950s, and
became radicalized while providing psychiatric services to colonized Algerians. Joined the
Algerian National Liberation Front, committed to Algerian independence from France. In
two major and enormously influential books – Black Skin, White Masks (1953) and The
Wretched of the Earth (1960), Fanon wrote that colonialism caused a unique pathology in
the colonized and the colonizer, which could only be cured through violent revolutionary
struggle against colonial rule.
Ford, Henry (1863-1947).
. American automotive and industrial pioneer. Born to Irish immigrants
near Dearborn, Michigan, he became a machinist’s apprentice in Detroit at age 16. From
1888 to 1899 he was a mechanical engineer, and in 1896 completed his first automobile in
his spare time. He founded Ford Motor Company in 1903, and began the Model T in 1908.
In 1913, he pioneered (thought did not invent) the use of standardized interchangeable parts
and assembly lines: hence mass production. The Model T sold 15 million cars by 1927.
Ford was noted for high worker pay and early brutality towards unions. Ford Motor is now a
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global giant, making cars worldwide under many brands. Henry Ford will be known for his
industrial organization, assembly line method, and early mass-marketing of the nowuniversal
automobile.
Foucault, Miche
French philosopher and social theorist. Received degrees in
philosophy and psychology from the École Normale Superieure in Paris. He wrote
extensively in challenging social norms and “truths” which, he argued, are actually human
products subject to constant change. An important social activist on behalf of prisoners, the
mentally ill, and the sexually different. His major works include Madness and Civilization,
The Order of Things, The Archaeology of Knowledge, Discipline and Punish, and The
History of Sexuality. He died in 1984 in Paris as the result of AIDS – though this was not
known at the time.
Freud, Sigmund
Austrian-born Jewish physician and neurologist, and the founder
of psychoanalysis. Freud developed extensive theories of the unconscious mind, and argued
for the psychological rather than physiological bases of many illnesses and conditions. His
therapy used hypnosis, dream analysis, and free association. A powerful writer, Freud’s
major books included The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), The Psychopathology of
Everyday Life (1904), Totem and Taboo (1913), Ego and the Id (1923), Introductory
Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1933), and Moses and Monotheism (1939). He stands as one of
the most influential twentieth century thinkers.
Freire, Paulo
Brazilian educator and educational theorist. He was exiled from
Brazil after a military coup in 1964, and then taught in Chile and at Harvard and was a
consultant to UNESCO and the World Council of Churches. He returned to Brazil in 1981.
Known for controversial approach to teaching the impoverished and powerless by means of
“consciencization,” in which education is seen not as the amassing of accepted facts but as
the development of a critical account of one’s own life and socio-political situation.
Principal works include The Pedagogy of the Oppressed and The Politics of Education
García Márquez, Gabriel Jos
Colombian novelist and short story writer. Nobel
prize for literature in 1982. Studied law at the National University in Bogota and the
University of Cartagena, then turned to journalism. His 1967 book One Hundred Years of
Solitude created an international sensation, and was an early example of “magical realism,”
which brought reality and fantasy together. In this and subsequent novels he has remained a
globally influential writer.
Gates, William
Born in Seattle WA in 1955. In 1975, Gates left before finishing his B.A.
at Harvard U. and co-founded Microsoft, the first microcomputer software (as opposed to
hardware) company. In 1980, he developed the operating software (MS Disc Operating
System, or DOS, the precursor of Windows) for IBM’s planned personal computer. Gates’
company retained rights to the software, and transformed this distinction into the foundation
of the world’s most valuable private company, which has made Gates the richest man in the
world. Recently, he has focused his time and fortune on global and national philanthrophy,
emphasizing education and health.
Kafka, Franz
Austrian (Czech) Jewish novelist and short-story writer, whose
disturbing, symbolic fiction, written in German, anticipated later 20th century despair and
bureaucratic or state power. He is considered one of the most significant figures in modern
world literature. The term Kafkaesque refers to grotesque, anxiety-producing social
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conditions or their literary representation. His major works, almost all of which were
published in the 1920s and 30s after his death, against his explicit orders to burn his
writings, and often from fragmentary manuscripts, include The Trial, The Castle, and The
Metamorphosis. (This last work, a long short story, was published in 1915.)
Kuhn, Thomas
American historian and theoretician of science. Kuhn’s 1957 book
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions pioneered the notion of “paradigm shifts.” It argued
that science does not proceed inevitably and incrementally ever closer to a fixed truth.
Rather, for Kuhn, science undergoes periodic revolutions in its overall world-views when
older paradigms (or generally accepted intellectual frameworks) prove to be inadequate, and
get replaced. All history and philosophy of science since Kuhn has been in his debt.
Mead, Margaret
Philadelphia-born highly influential American anthropologist who
studied the impact of culture on the development of human personality. Her work focused
on so-called primitive societies and the varying ways they viewed social, sexual, educational
and other standards. Her best known book was Coming of Age in Samoa (1928).
Nietzsche, Friedrich
German philosopher and classical scholar. Severe critic of
religion, Christianity, and the repressions of society, he was infamous for his statement that
“God is dead.” His works, which challenged received notions of the beautiful, the good, and
the true, celebrated the power of the human “will to power,” and had a great influence on
late 19th and early 20th century European literature, philosophy, and psychology. Major
works include The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), and On the
Genealogy of Morals (1887). He fell into insanity in 1889.
Rushdie, Salman
Bombay-born Anglo-Indian novelist. Rushdie is one of the major
literary figures of the global postcolonial world. His style, influenced by magical realism,
became famous worldwide with his 1981 book Midnight’s Children, which narrated the
history of modern India. Numerous other dizzyingly inventive novels have followed. In
1989, he was condemned to death by Iranian clerics for alleged blasphemy of Islam in his
novel The Satanic Verses. Rushdie went into hiding in England, continued to write, and has
only recently re-emerged. Other works include Shame (1983), The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995),
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and The Enchantress of Venice (2008). His writing explores numerous themes, primarily but
not only related to India and the sub-continental region.
Said, Edward W
, born 1935 in Jerusalem, d. New York 2003. Palestinian-American literary critic and cosmopolitan Palestinian activist and humanist. Educated in Egypt, the U.S. (boarding school, then BA Princeton, PhD Harvard), and from the early 1960s a professor of literature at Columbia University in New York. Said is the most important figure in the 20th century rise of “global” social and cultural literary criticism, particularly that which confronts the domination of Europe over vast areas of the world. His most influential book was Orientalism (1978). He also published substantial political critique, music criticism, and intellectual history.
Sartre, Jean-Paul
French novelist, playwright, and philosopher. An anti-Nazi
resistance fighter during World War II, Sartre was the leading European philosopher of the
1950s and 1960s. He advocated Existentialism, which emphasized the nothingness
underlying human existence, and the consequent duty for people to take absolute
responsibility for their actions and being. He argued that existence – actual being – precedes
essence – or philosophical being. A lifelong socialist, his writings include Nausea (1938),
Being and Nothingness (1943), and No Exit (1944). In 1964, he refused the Nobel Prize for
literature as a way of maintaining his integrity as a writer.
Weber, Max
German sociologist, political economist, and historian, known for his
thesis of the “Protestant Ethic,” relating Protestantism to capitalism, and his ideas on
bureaucracy. Through his manifold analyses of human actions, Weber became perhaps the
most significant founding figure in the field of sociology.
Woolf, Virginia
British author most recognized for her contribution to the changing
form of the novel and her critical essays. Through her writing Woolf explored how people
experience time and events and the transitory nature of character. Major novels include Mrs.
Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and The Waves. In her essay “A Room of One’s Own,” she
writes of the difficulties encountered by female writers in a man’s world. She is seen as one
of the pioneering women of literature in the English language.
