War Is the Health of the State - Essay Example

Topic: Annotated Bibliography Zinn, Howard. War is the Health of the In: History is a Weapon: A Peoples History of the United States. HarperCollins Publishers. New York, New York. 2003. This is a chapter of the book History is a Weapon: A People’s History of the United States which described the ill-effects of war, amid class struggle, which killed thousands of peoples and devastated infrastructures of nations during World War I. It also detailed the sad plight of people’s evacuation, their hunger, and havoc which destroyed their normal psyche as traumatized civilians. Ironically, amid this specter of death and sad realities, there remained one newspaper which encouraged civilians to write and encouraging messages, in the face of discouraging economic state of all empires. The wars took place in a furious fight to control territory and resources. As violence escalate, laws were legislated to support the war policy of nations, e.g. espionage, albeit complaints of people who uphold freedom of speech against the monstrosity of forced servitude for war and to reassert their constitutional human rights. Author is from Brooklyn who was directly involved in WWII which motivated him to advocate for peace agenda later in his life. In 1956, he became a professor at Spellman College in Atlanta, a school for black women at the height of Civil rights movement. He was an adviser of to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). 2. Zinn, Howard. Chapter 2: Drawing the Color Line. In: History is a Weapon: A Peoples History of the United States. HarperCollins Publishers. New York, New York 2003. This chapter of the book explicated the racial discrimination and the trafficking of black men who were subjected to severe slavery in North America. Many of them were forced to partake labor for agriculture—to grow rice, corn, and tobacco. Author is directly involved in WWII which motivated him to advocate for peace agenda. In 1956, he became a professor at Spellman College in Atlanta, a school for black women at the height of Civil rights movement. He was an adviser of to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). 3. Zinn, Howard. You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train. Beacon Press, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America. 2002. This is a book which relates about post 9/11 incident and the consequential bombings done in Afghanistan as retaliatory moves against suspected terrorists. The author reflected about his experience as ‘bombardier’ in the Second World War and concluded that “any war, no matter how good, cannot solve the problems.” The author, as a warrior, has experiential stories of his participation on wars in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Iraq and Yugoslavia. In this story, author reflected that while there are so much theoretical concepts about democracy, freedom, national security, there remains a large majority who are poor, hungry and sick. Author advocated for the reversal of the roles of heroes and villains following his deep involvement in American wars against its perceived enemies. 4. Zinn, Howard , Slavery without Submission, Emancipation without Freedom. In: A Peoples History of the United States. Harper Perennial. 2011. Former war veteran turned historian and peace activist, Zinn, critically evaluated the historical information of American Civil War. The book, a New York bestseller, recounted historic accounts of American labor, slave and free, toward the progression of Civil War. His account also proposed the democratization of systems and the imperative of peace to favor primary issues on social ills plaguing around the country. 5. Zinn, Howard , Persons of Mean and Vile Condition. HarperCollins Publishers, New York, New York,United States of America. 2010. A former war veteran, historian wrote this scholarly work to relate to Americans the their story of violent conflicts, injustices amongst tribes, inequality and the nature of national pride which has somehow negatively impact to the world’s order as it assumed the authority as police for international security management. The book was written grounded on author’s 20 years of teaching and research on American history. It tackled issues on labors, slavery, and the war on terror. 6. Thoreau, Henry David, Slavery in Massachusetts. Forgotten Books. America. 2008. This is an essay of Thoreau containing his conviction against slavery and which was delivered in 1854 in a political rally against enslavement. Thoreau is an American philosopher, naturalist and an economic critic. He severely criticized Fugitive Slave Law and advocated for non-violent but proactive resistance. 7. Langston, Hughes. Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten. Vintage Book and Random House Inc., New York. 2002. James Mercer Langston Hughes is an American poet, literary expert and a columnist. His expertise on literary is focused on jazz poetry at a period of Harlem Renaissance. His poems were lyrical but are greatly accepted by literary writers and he has deep interest about black culture. He became a friend of Carl Van Vechten, a writer and photographer. Their distinct level of friendship is depicted in this book which relate the antiquities and about racial relations and in the Harlem where they used to lurk. Their collated letters were perceived entertaining, political and have tackled culture with such fascination. 8. Cullen, Countee. Yet Do I Marvel. In: I Am the Darker Brother: An anthology of Modern Poems by African Americans of Arnold Adoff and Benny Andrews. Alladin Paperbacks. New York, New York, United States of America. 2002. Cullen is a New Yorker and was born in 1903 and finished education in Harvard. Cullen was a poet and has published book on poetry in Copper Sun, The Black Christ, The Medea and Other Poems and The Last Zoo. He is a lyric poet. Yet Do I Marvel is a poem which tackles a black man’s faith with God. It was reckoned that while Cullen was in Harvard, he also wrote the Ballad of a Brown Girl. 9. McKay, Claude. Harlem Shadows. Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York. United States America. 1922. This is a poem published in 1922 depicting an African-American attitude and capacity to evoke its emotional anger to racism in America. McKays experiential experiences on racism encourage his dissention to the system and hence, encouraged him to spend most of his time reflecting and writing about racial prejudice. In depth, he wrote his sympathy and compassion with African-American. He also wrote If We Must Die, America, The White City, In Bondage, Enslaved, Outcast, and The Lynching. Harlem Shadows is a collection of poem which discussed author’s passion with nature, his early childhood moments; his feelings of solitude, about missing home and about love. 10. Bourne, Randolf. War is the Health of the State. Bureau of Public Secrets. Berkeley, California, United States of America. 1918. Bourne wrote an essay about how war has affected the health of the state. He discussed about effects of partisan politics realizing the fact that government is composed of “unsanctified men”, thus, should be criticized severely in its decision-makings, especially when it deals about war. Bourne believed that often, politicians made some decision-makings that are not reflective of people’s sentiments and have deflected the role of diplomatic relations that are perceived helpful in mediating conflicting situations or in forestalling wars. Bourne argued that the state ought to be a political system that upholds justice, lawfulness and human rights its national or international relations. These for him, is inherent to human being’s natural ideals as economic and political beings. For him, people should oppose and criticize the system which does not represent its ideals and dreams. He proposed that the state should primordially take care on social services and for sustainable development. In his theoretical discussion, Bourne perceived that “state is a jealous God and its sovereignty pervades every one.” He believed that even if war is a function of the state, however, it must not abuse the national resources knowing how militarism exhausts national budget at the expense of state’s ideals. Read More