Alice Echols – författare

A rich history of cross-racial coalitions and alliances of the Sixties' freedom movement, acclaimed historian Alice Echols's Black Power, White Heat reshapes our understanding of the entire era.One of the most divisive issues in recent progressive politics has been what role, if any, allies might legitimately play in other people's movements. Despite the significance of this debate, it has taken place in a historical vacuum. In Black Power, White Heat: From Solidarity Politics to Radical Chic, the Sixties historian Alice Echols explores what happened some sixty years ago when whites and Blacks came together in the fight against racism. She tells this story by focusing on two Black-led organizations that bookend the Sixties: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party. In SNCC, whites were, in part, meant to generate a "white heat" so searing it would accelerate change. Results were mixed, and white activists formed new movements, from women's liberation to draft resistance. By 1967, the Black Panther Party was advancing its own unique brand of "revolutionary nationalism," and seeking out white supporters. Partnering with whites brought the group visibility and resources, but it also put the Panthers at odds with other Black radicals, with unfortunate consequences. Black Power, White Heat explains how solidarity lost credibility, and not just from within the movement. Here, the FBI played a key role, and so did the discourse of "radical chic," advanced most effectively by the journalist Tom Wolfe. Still, even as Black-white solidarity lost steam, it was not entirely played out. In some of the era's most important political trials, even courtrooms became sites of solidarity as predominantly white juries returned verdicts that suggested they trusted Black Panther defendants more than the District Attorneys prosecuting them. Clear-eyed about the difficulties of solidarity, Black Power, White Heat nonetheless emphasizes the achievements and considerable promise of uniting across difference, and in ways that will inform and deepen current debates roiling progressive politics.

A rich history of cross-racial coalitions and alliances of the Sixties' freedom movement, acclaimed historian Alice Echols's Black Power, White Heat reshapes our understanding of the entire era.One of the most divisive issues in recent progressive politics has been what role, if any, allies might legitimately play in other people's movements. Despite the significance of this debate, it has taken place in a historical vacuum. In Black Power, White Heat: From Solidarity Politics to Radical Chic, the Sixties historian Alice Echols explores what happened some sixty years ago when whites and Blacks came together in the fight against racism. She tells this story by focusing on two Black-led organizations that bookend the Sixties: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party. In SNCC, whites were, in part, meant to generate a "e;white heat"e; so searing it would accelerate change. Results were mixed, and white activists formed new movements, from women's liberation to draft resistance. By 1967, the Black Panther Party was advancing its own unique brand of "e;revolutionary nationalism"e;, and seeking out white supporters. Partnering with whites brought the group visibility and resources, but it also put the Panthers at odds with other Black radicals, with unfortunate consequences. Black Power, White Heat explains how solidarity lost credibility, and not just from within the movement. Here, the FBI played a key role, and so did the discourse of "e;radical chic"e;, advanced most effectively by the journalist Tom Wolfe. Still, even as Black-white solidarity lost steam, it was not entirely played out. In some of the era's most important political trials, even courtrooms became sites of solidarity as predominantly white juries returned verdicts that suggested they trusted Black Panther defendants more than the District Attorneys prosecuting them. Clear-eyed about the difficulties of solidarity, Black Power, White Heat nonetheless emphasizes the achievements and considerable promise of uniting across difference, and in ways that will inform and deepen current debates roiling progressive politics.

A rich history of cross-racial coalitions and alliances of the Sixties' freedom movement, acclaimed historian Alice Echols's Black Power, White Heat reshapes our understanding of the entire era.One of the most divisive issues in recent progressive politics has been what role, if any, allies might legitimately play in other people's movements. Despite the significance of this debate, it has taken place in a historical vacuum. In Black Power, White Heat: From Solidarity Politics to Radical Chic, the Sixties historian Alice Echols explores what happened some sixty years ago when whites and Blacks came together in the fight against racism. She tells this story by focusing on two Black-led organizations that bookend the Sixties: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party. In SNCC, whites were, in part, meant to generate a "e;white heat"e; so searing it would accelerate change. Results were mixed, and white activists formed new movements, from women's liberation to draft resistance. By 1967, the Black Panther Party was advancing its own unique brand of "e;revolutionary nationalism"e;, and seeking out white supporters. Partnering with whites brought the group visibility and resources, but it also put the Panthers at odds with other Black radicals, with unfortunate consequences. Black Power, White Heat explains how solidarity lost credibility, and not just from within the movement. Here, the FBI played a key role, and so did the discourse of "e;radical chic"e;, advanced most effectively by the journalist Tom Wolfe. Still, even as Black-white solidarity lost steam, it was not entirely played out. In some of the era's most important political trials, even courtrooms became sites of solidarity as predominantly white juries returned verdicts that suggested they trusted Black Panther defendants more than the District Attorneys prosecuting them. Clear-eyed about the difficulties of solidarity, Black Power, White Heat nonetheless emphasizes the achievements and considerable promise of uniting across difference, and in ways that will inform and deepen current debates roiling progressive politics.

Alice Echols has never shied away from controversy. Long before it was fashionable, she wrote searing critiques of antiporn feminism. Her subsequent books about the 1960s are trenchant and provocative, and written with unflinching honesty. Now she maps an alternative history of contemporary American culture, taking on such subjects as hippies, gay/lesbian and women's liberation, disco and the racial politics of music, and artists as diverse as Joni Mitchell and Lenny Kravitz. Echols upends many of our bedrock assumptions about American culture since the 1950s, challenging in particular the notions that the '60s represented a total rupture with the past and that the '70s marked the end of meaningful change.

Alice Echols has never shied away from controversy. Long before it was fashionable, she wrote searing critiques of antiporn feminism. Her subsequent books about the 1960s are trenchant and provocative, and written with unflinching honesty. Now she maps an alternative history of contemporary American culture, taking on such subjects as hippies, gay/lesbian and women's liberation, disco and the racial politics of music, and artists as diverse as Joni Mitchell and Lenny Kravitz. Echols upends many of our bedrock assumptions about American culture since the 1950s, challenging in particular the notions that the '60s represented a total rupture with the past and that the '70s marked the end of meaningful change.

In the 1970s, as the disco tsunami engulfed America, the question, "Do you wanna dance?" became divisive, even explosive. What about this music made it such hot stuff? In her incisive history, Alice Echols reveals the ways in which disco transformed popular music, propelling it into new sonic territory and influencing rap, techno, and trance. This account probes the complex relationship between disco and the era’s major movements: gay liberation, feminism, and the black freedom struggle. You won’t say “disco sucks” again as disco pumps back to life in this pulsating look at the culture and politics that gave rise to the music.

Winner of Outstanding Book Award of Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human RightsAn award-winning and canonical history of radical feminism, whose activist heat and intellectual audacity powered second-wave feminism-30th anniversary edition  A fascinating chronicle of radical feminism’s rise and fall from the mid-Sixties to the mid-Seventies, Daring to Be Bad is a must-read for both students of gender history and activists of intersectionality. This thirtieth anniversary edition reveals how current debates about race, transgender rights, queer theory, and sexuality echo issues that galvanized and divided feminists fifty years ago.

The undisputed queen of sex, drugs and rock n' roll was also the voice of a generation who, when she overdosed on heroin at the age of twenty-seven in October 1970; became the posthumous icon of bad girl femininity for millions around the world.Drawing on hundreds of interviews Echols renders Joplin in all her complexity, revealing how this sweet-voiced girl from Texas recreated herself, first as a gravely-voiced bluesy folksinger, and then as rock n' roll's first female superstar. Echols examines the roots of her musicianship and her efforts to probe the outer limits of life; declaring herself the first white-black person and pursuing sex with men and women alike. Moving from the electric ballrooms of San Francisco to the mud-soaked fields of Woodstock, Joplin's story is also a chronicle of the revolutions of the sixties - a generation's experiment with high-risk living and the exacting price they ultimately paid for this. Written in a captivating novel-like style this is a deeply affecting biography of one of America's most talented, tormented and enduring stars.