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| 1 |
ID:
185941
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| Summary/Abstract |
In the early 1970s, the security threat posed by the Soviet Union and the widespread poverty of the Chinese people prompted the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to reconsider its foreign and economic policies. Although still in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, the majority of the CCP’s leadership, including Chairman Mao Zedong, desired to turn attention away from internal political struggles and toward the national economy. Mao was determined to engage with the United States to confront the precarious situation that his country faced. This new foreign dynamic jibed with U.S. President Richard Nixon’s approach to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and finally brought about U.S.-Chinese rapprochement in the early 1970s. Impinging on the strategic triangle between the United States, China, and the Soviet Union, the U.S.-Chinese rapprochement also enabled China to boost its economy by obtaining advanced technology from the West. At the same time, several pragmatic and moderate leaders such as Zhou Enlai, Hua Guofeng, and Li Xiannian also began to focus on the problems of feeding and clothing the Chinese people (with Mao’s instructions and approval, of course), and turned to the West to import advanced technology and equipment for the petrochemical, steel, and other industrial sectors. These foreign policy shifts culminated in the creation of SisanFang’an (“Four Three Program”) in 1973, an act of opening China to the Western world and a second major effort to import foreign technology, following the comprehensive economic assistance received from the Soviet Union in the 1950s.
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| 2 |
ID:
185939
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| 3 |
ID:
185940
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| Summary/Abstract |
Paul Crouch, the founder of the world’s largest religious television network, Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), knew the force hindering his 1985 plan to expand his operation in South Africa: the Devil. “The infernal handiwork” of Crouch’s arch-enemy—Satan—threatened TBN’s designs on the country.1 Facing technological problems, the sudden death of his go-between to South African Prime Minister P.W. Botha, and U.S. Congressional resistance to network expansion, Crouch felt the fate of the world, and the afterworld, hanging in the balance. Calling for spiritual reinforcements, Crouch reminded his millions of subscribers that “South Africa [was] the key to the LAST MAJOR BATTLE” that stood between TBN and God’s glorious kingdom.2 For Crouch and TBN, South Africa represented an essential location to initiate the second coming of Jesus Christ, opening all of the “dark continent” for conversion. The stakes for TBN could not have been higher, and Crouch and his followers became apartheid apologists to obtain the South African government’s support for TBN’s “higher battle” of theological expansion.
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| 4 |
ID:
185937
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| Summary/Abstract |
It was the culminating moment in what was billed as the most ambitious music event ever staged. On October 14, 1988, 30,000 exuberant spectators packed the Estadio Mundialista football stadium in Mendoza, Argentina for the penultimate event in the Human Rights Now! concert series, a globe-trotting tour with performances in fifteen countries on four continents. Organized by the human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the tour showcased some of the most distinguished popular musicians of the era: Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman, and Youssou N’Dour. Over a six-week period, more than a million people attended concerts, volunteers handed out 1.2 million copies of the Declaration, and hundreds of thousands of concert-goers signed a petition calling upon governments to ratify international human rights treaties and protect human rights advocates.
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| 5 |
ID:
185938
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| Summary/Abstract |
In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the U.S. People-to-People Program as part of his campaign to win the Cold War. The program encouraged Americans as private citizens to create contacts with foreign peoples in an effort to foster “a sympathetic understanding of the aspirations, the hopes and fears, the traditions and prides of other peoples and nations.”1 What began as a government-backed program eventually turned into a non-profit nongovernmental organization renamed People to People International (PTPI). This organization has continued Eisenhower’s vision for over half a century by working to “enhance international understanding and friendship” through the “exchange of ideas and experiences directly among peoples of different countries.”2 Nine U.S. presidents have served as honorary chairman of the organization, starting with Eisenhower.
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| 6 |
ID:
185936
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| Summary/Abstract |
In November 1964, U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson and his wife Lady Bird hosted the president-elect of Mexico, Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, at their Ranch on the banks of the Pedernales River in the Texas Hill Country, not far from Austin. National flags lined the path to the Ranch house, and welcoming banners hung from the porch. Guests were served Texas barbecue featuring ribs, brisket, and sausages, accompanied by beans, biscuits, potato salad, and fried apple pies, all eaten on the gently sloping banks of the river under live oaks decorated with colorful piñatas. The entertainment featured a former Miss Texas performing Spanish dances, a marimba band that played a version of Johnson’s campaign song “Hello Lyndon” with a “Latin beat,” popular singer Eddie Fisher, and, finally, a sheepdog demonstration from handler Clint Harlow, whose act was “climaxed by a cowboy clad monkey riding a dog, herding sheep.”
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