You're History! How People Make the Difference

by Brown, Michelle P.; Kelly, Richard J.; Geldof, Bob

• ISBN13: 9780826488985
• ISBN10: 0826488986
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-12-20
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

The purpose of this book is to make people think and connect wires, to encourage them to question their own place within the world, to acknowledge personal and collective responsibility and to enable them to feel empowered by discussing a range of situations and issues that have been changed by individuals, groups or pressure of public opinion and by the exertion of rights and choices. This collection of contributions by leading public figures and historians applies the lens of history to enhance our perspective on current affairs. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Richard J. Kelly is a professor and departmental head at the School of Literature, Arts and Cultural Studies at Kinki University in Osaka, which is one of Japan's largest universities. He specializes in the study of medieval literatures, in particular the Christian prose and poetry of the Anglo-Saxon period (mid 5th to early 12th century) and is an authority on the early English language. He is the author of a number of books as well as several academic papers in books and journals, ranging in content from medieval literature, culture, art and manuscripts to linguistics and textual transmission. His most significant works are Stone, Skin and Silver (1999), The Blickling Homilies (2003) and You're History! How People Make the Difference (2005)

Table of Contents

Frontispiece: Calligraphic artwork inspired by the vision of an integrated Creation by leading British Sikh calligrapher, Satwinder Sehmi, originally presented to Nelson Mandela
A Poet's Response: De Rong Radio	xi
Benjamin Zephaniah
Contributors	xv
Foreword: From Live Aid to Live 8	xxvii
Bob Geldof
Preface: the UN Millennium Campaign	xxxiii
Salil Shetty
Introduction: History in the making	1	(16)
Michelle P. Brown
Making Poverty History	17	(12)
Richard Curtis
The UN Declaration of Human Rights, printed with comments by	29	(4)
Eleanor Roosevelt
Mary Robinson
Irene Khan
Universal Declaration of Human Rights	33	(10)
`It's Positively Medieval': Challenging Some Preconceptions of History	43	(20)
Michelle P. Brown
Inequality: A Modest Proposal?	63	(12)
Richard J. Kelly
The Other, Man-made Tsunami	75	(8)
John Pilger
Africa, the Crisis Continent?	83	(12)
Richard Dowden
How the Modern-day Missionaries Called `Human Rights Activists' Help Wreak Havoc in Africa	95	(10)
Robin Philpot
Twenty Years with AIDS	105	(10)
Marie-Roger Biloa
Reviving Democracy	115	(10)
Martin Bell
Celebrating the Heroes of Democracy	125	(18)
Dan Plesch
Cinema in Control and Conscience: Moviemakers from `Double V' to McCarthyism	143	(20)
Evan Heimlich
Time to Make War History As Well	163	(14)
Scilla Elworthy
Carolyn Hayman
Islam: Clash or Dialogue of Civilizations?	177	(8)
Akbar Ahmed
Conflict and Personal Liberty	185	(10)
Terry Waite
What Price Imprisonment?	195	(12)
David Ramsbotham
`Places Without a Future': the Jarrow March and the Great Depression	207	(12)
William Frame
Reporters on the Line: Risk Taking and Conscience in the Former Soviet Union	219	(12)
Bruce Clark
The Media's Fault?	231	(4)
John Simpson
Genocide: the Violence and the Silence	235	(18)
Ciaran Quinn
Change - and North Korea: Is Aid Really Making a Difference?	253	(12)
Kathi Zellweger
The Dregs in the Pot of Gold: the Irish Experience of Exchanging Dignity for Racism	265	(14)
Alan Titley
Silent Suffering, Stoic Resistance: Human Rights Abuses of Women and Children in Latin America	279	(12)
Kari Lydersen
Pious Aspiration or a Tool for Change? The Significance of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child	291	(12)
Gerison Lansdown
The Politics of Sexuality: Faith - the Final Frontier?	303	(12)
Stephen Bates
Surviving Ourselves: Environment, Society and the Future of Our Civilization	315	(12)
Ricardo Navarro
Greenbacks in the Garden of Eden: an Essay on How Not to Save the Rainforests	327	(14)
Simon Counsell
Ourselves and Other Animals: the Ethics of Farming	341	(12)
Joyce d'Silva
The Human Race - a Marathon, not a Sprint: the Millennium Development Goals and their Ethos	353	(12)
Edmund Newell
Sabina Alkire
Appendices
`So you think you know about ...?':	365	(1)
The Millennium Development Goals	365	(6)
The Faces of Poverty	371	(3)
Modern-day Slavery	374	(4)
Women's Rights	378	(5)
Childhood under Threat	383	(4)
Disability Rights	387	(2)
The Death Penalty	389	(3)
Arms and the Arms Trade	392	(5)
Global Landmine Crisis	397