Limit search to available items
Book Cover
E-book
Author Raustiala, Kal, author.

Title The absolutely indispensable man : Ralph Bunche, the United Nations, and the fight to end empire / Kal Raustiala
Published New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023]
©2023

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xxi, 661 pages) : illustrations
Contents Foreword -- Preface -- 1. West and East -- 2. Mandates and Colonies -- 3. A World View of Race -- 4. The War -- 5. Rebuilding the World -- 6. San Francisco -- 7. The UNO -- 8. The Struggle over Trusteeship -- 9. The Problem of Palestine -- 10. The Path to the Prize -- 11. Triumph -- 12. Bunche Fever -- 13. Loyalty -- 14. Showdown at Suez -- 15. Corporal Bunche -- 16. To Gaza -- 17. The Year of Africa -- 18. Katanga -- 19. The Congo and the Cold War -- 20. The Death of Hammarskjold -- 21. Kennedy and Johnson -- 22. From Saigon to Selma -- 23. Seeking an End -- 24. An Idealist and a Realist -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Index
Summary Nobel Laureate, UN Under Secretary General, and American diplomat, Ralph Bunche was present at the creation of the postwar international order. Yet even before that order was launched Bunche championed one of the most consequential, but often unsung, transformations of the twentieth century: the end of colonialism and the transition, for much of Africa and Asia, from empire to sovereignty. As a scholar in the 1930s, Bunche studied the colonial system. As a mediator in postcolonial Palestine, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring peace to the new state of Israel and its Arab neighbors. As a rare Black man in the very white world of diplomacy, Bunche fought to ensure that new states were welcomed-and guided-into the international community. Once "the most honored African American in America," Ralph Bunche is largely forgotten today; remembered by some as a master of international diplomacy, by others as an icon of racial equality, yet little known to the public at large. Bunche merits recognition both for his extraordinary American life and for the lens he provides on two significant features of the 20th century-the creation of the postwar international order and the struggle for racial equality-that are rarely joined but deserve to be, and that he himself married in the realm of ideas and in his own person. Bunche saw no dissonance in this pairing of diplomacy and civil rights. He sought to make both America and the world more just, more free, and more fair. During his lifetime-and in part due to his efforts-nearly a billion people of color gained independence from foreign rule. The titanic global conflicts of the 20th century, from the Great War to the Cold War, are rarely viewed today through the lens of race and rights. Yet for much of the 20th century race was arguably the central principle in international relations. To Bunche racial justice was a global, not merely national, issue, and empire was one of racism's most potent and perilous guises. Colonialism was an oppressive form of governance, and the fight to end empire provided a throughline to his stellar-and fascinating-career
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on online resource; title from home page (Oxford Academic, viewed October 17, 2023)
Subject Bunche, Ralph J. (Ralph Johnson), 1904-1971.
SUBJECT Bunche, Ralph J. (Ralph Johnson), 1904-1971 fast
Subject United Nations -- Biography
SUBJECT United Nations fast
Subject African American diplomats -- Biography
Nobel Prize winners -- United States -- Biography
Statesmen -- United States -- Biography
African American diplomats
Nobel Prize winners
Statesmen
Biography & non-fiction prose.
Biography.
United States
Genre/Form Biographies
Biographies.
Biographies.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780197602256
0197602258
9780197602263
0197602266
9780197602249
019760224X
Other Titles Ralph Bunche, the United Nations, and the fight to end empire