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Covering more than four decades of American social and political history, this book examines the ideas and actions of black Republican activists, officials, and politicians, from the era of the New Deal to Ronald Reagan's presidential ascent in 1980. Their unique stories reveal African Americans fighting for an alternative economic and civil rights movement—even as the Republican Party appeared increasingly hostile to that very idea. Black party members attempted to influence the direction of conservatism—not to destroy it, but rather to expand the ideology to include black needs and interests. As racial minorities in their political party and as political minorities within their community, black Republicans occupied an irreconcilable position—they were shunned by African American communities and subordinated by the Grand Old Party (GOP). In response, black Republicans vocally, and at times viciously, critiqued members of their race and party, in an effort to shape the attitudes and public images of black citizens and the GOP. Moving beyond traditional liberalism and conservatism, black Republicans sought to address African American racial experiences in a distinctly Republican way. This book provides a new understanding of the interaction between African Americans and the Republican Party, and the seemingly incongruous intersection of civil rights and American conservatism.

Stalin’s Defectors is the first systematic study of the phenomenon of front-line surrender to the Germans in the Soviet Union’s ‘Great Patriotic War’ against the Nazis in 1941–5. No other Allied army in the Second World War had such a large share of defectors among its prisoners of war. Based on a broad range of sources, this book investigates the extent, the context, the scenarios, the reasons, the aftermath, and the historiography of front-line defection. It shows that the most widespread sentiment animating attempts to cross the front line was a wish to survive this war. Disgruntlement with Stalin’s ‘socialism’ was also prevalent among those who chose to give up and hand themselves over to the enemy. While politics thus played a prominent role in pushing people to commit treason, few desired to fight on the side of the enemy. Hence, while the phenomenon of front-line defection tells us much about the lack of popularity of Stalin’s regime, it does not prove that the majority of the population was ready for resistance, let alone collaboration. Both sides of a long-standing debate between those who equate all Soviet captives with defectors, and those who attempt to downplay the phenomenon, then, over-stress their argument. Instead, more recent research on the moods of both the occupied and the unoccupied Soviet population shows that the majority understood its own interest in opposition to both Hitler’s and Stalin’s regime. The findings of this book support such an interpretation.