The Absolutely Indispensable Man: Ralph Bunche, the United Nations, and the Fight to End Empire

The Absolutely Indispensable Man

Ralph Bunche, the United Nations, and the Fight to End Empire
 
Publisher: OUP USA
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Product details:

ISBN13:9780197602232
ISBN10:0197602231
Binding:Hardback
No. of pages:688 pages
Size:241x165x50 mm
Weight:1100 g
Language:English
608
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Short description:

In this political biography, Kal Raustiala tells the life story of famed diplomat, scholar, Nobel prize winner, and civil rights leader Ralph Bunche. Raustiala argues that his most lasting achievement was his work against the European empire across the globe. As a high-ranking United Nations official in the 1950s and 1960s, Bunche saw decolonization as a project of global racial justice. From marching with Martin Luther King to advising presidents and prime ministers, Bunche is one of the most prominent Black Americans of the twentieth century. This definitive biography gives him his due. It also reminds us that the end of empire had a powerful impact on America's own civil rights struggle.

Long description:
A wide-ranging political biography of diplomat, Nobel prize winner, and civil rights leader Ralph Bunche.

A legendary diplomat, scholar, and civil rights leader, Ralph Bunche was one of the most prominent Black Americans of the twentieth century. The first African American to obtain a political science Ph.D. from Harvard and a celebrated diplomat at the United Nations, he was once so famous he handed out the Best Picture award at the Oscars. Yet today Ralph Bunche is largely forgotten.

In The Absolutely Indispensable Man, Kal Raustiala restores Bunche to his rightful place in history. He shows that Bunche was not only a singular figure in midcentury America; he was also one of the key architects of the postwar international order. Raustiala tells the story of Bunche's dramatic life, from his early years in prewar Los Angeles to UCLA, Harvard, the State Department, and the heights of global diplomacy at the United Nations. After narrowly avoiding assassination Bunche received the Nobel Peace Prize for his ground-breaking mediation of the first Arab-Israeli conflict, catapulting him to popular fame. A central player in some of the most dramatic crises of the Cold War, he pioneered conflict management and peacekeeping at the UN. But as Raustiala argues, his most enduring achievement was his work to dismantle European empire. Bunche perceptively saw colonialism as the central issue of the 20th century and decolonization as a project of global racial justice.

From marching with Martin Luther King to advising presidents and prime ministers, Ralph Bunche shaped our world in lasting ways. This definitive biography gives him his due. It also reminds us that postwar decolonization not only fundamentally transformed world politics, but also powerfully intersected with America's own civil rights struggle.

In Kal Raustiala, Ralph Bunche has found his most attentive, incisive, and sympathetic biographer. Arguably the nation's most significant envoi of the American Century, Dr. Bunche emerges from these pages a brilliant, complex figure?equally pragmatic and visionary, cautious and courageous. We discover a precocious Black kid with worldly dreams; a genuine internationalist skeptical of nationalisms; an intellectual maverick who helped to construct the postwar global order while insisting on a planet without colonies. An absolutely indispensable book.
Table of Contents:
Foreword
Preface
West and East
Mandates and Colonies
A World View of Race
The War
Rebuilding the World
San Francisco
The UNO
The Struggle Over Trusteeship
The Problem of Palestine
The Path to the Prize
Triumph
Bunche Fever
Loyalty
Showdown at Suez
Corporal Bunche
To Gaza
The Year of Africa
Katanga
The Congo and the Cold War
The Death of Hammarskjold
Kennedy and Johnson
From Saigon to Selma
Seeking an End
An Idealist and a Realist
Epilogue