Sign-In
Cart
Blazes Along a Diplomatic Trail
Paperback
Biographies GeneralGeneral Political ScienceInternational Relations
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN10: 1552125246
ISBN13: 9781552125243
Publisher: Authorhouse
Published: Dec 15 2000
Pages: 328
Weight: 1.06
Height: 0.73 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
ISBN13: 9781552125243
Publisher: Authorhouse
Published: Dec 15 2000
Pages: 328
Weight: 1.06
Height: 0.73 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
BLAZES is divided into four parts.
The first part deals with South Africa where the author was the deputy to the High Commissioner from 1958 to 1962. The country's troubled race relations were already under scrutiny in the United Nations and pressure was mounting at home and abroad for reform. All this was resented and resisted by the governing minority of the population represented by the National Party which was supported by most of the Afrikaans-speaking majority of the South African white population. Black African resistance led to the major protests of March 1960 which were suppressed with bloodshed at Sharpeville and led to measures that ended any pretence of democracy in South Africa. Sharpeville resulted in the withdrawal of South Africa from the Commonwealth and set the stage for the events of succeeding decades which eventually resulted in the establishment of a non-racial government under Nelson Mandela in 1991.
The first part deals with South Africa where the author was the deputy to the High Commissioner from 1958 to 1962. The country's troubled race relations were already under scrutiny in the United Nations and pressure was mounting at home and abroad for reform. All this was resented and resisted by the governing minority of the population represented by the National Party which was supported by most of the Afrikaans-speaking majority of the South African white population. Black African resistance led to the major protests of March 1960 which were suppressed with bloodshed at Sharpeville and led to measures that ended any pretence of democracy in South Africa. Sharpeville resulted in the withdrawal of South Africa from the Commonwealth and set the stage for the events of succeeding decades which eventually resulted in the establishment of a non-racial government under Nelson Mandela in 1991.
The second part concerns the Soviet Union where Brown was deputy to the Ambassador, Robert Ford, for a brief 16 months from mid-1964. Ford was a foreign service icon whose career had been marked by bad luck: he had been stationed in Moscow but absent on holidays during all the important Soviet events of the fifties and sixties. That included the coup d'etat when Nikita Khruschchev was removed from power and the author was in charge of the embassy. The Russian experience was rich and demanding -- and rewarding, for it lead to his first ambassadorial posting.
Part three deals with the Congo plus much of central Africa including Zambia, Malawi, Rwanda, Burundi, and Congo-Brazzaville: a lot of the dark continent that proved even in that time how dark it couldbe. Within weeks of Brown's arrival, he had experienced a dramatic coup in the Congo and found himself in charge of the airlift of oil and gasoline to Zambia occasioned by Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence. There was much more ahead as the crisis of Canadian unity led to confrontations in Africa between Canada, on the one side, and France and Quebec on the other.
Part four is about Cyprus, divided between Greek and Turk for centuries and kept in peace by the United Nations Force -- nonetheless a civilized piece of cake after the Congo. Canada was one of the major contributors of peacekeepers on the island. Then we blew it, closing our diplomatic mission, and abdicating an honourable role in a situation that lingers on. That was the 1968-1970 farewell to the decade of Blazes.
Since those days in South Africa, Russia, the Congo and Cyprus, none of the countries can be said to have solved all of the problems that faced them then. Instability concerns all, making Blazes Along a Diplomatic Trail of contemporary relevance.
Part three deals with the Congo plus much of central Africa including Zambia, Malawi, Rwanda, Burundi, and Congo-Brazzaville: a lot of the dark continent that proved even in that time how dark it couldbe. Within weeks of Brown's arrival, he had experienced a dramatic coup in the Congo and found himself in charge of the airlift of oil and gasoline to Zambia occasioned by Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence. There was much more ahead as the crisis of Canadian unity led to confrontations in Africa between Canada, on the one side, and France and Quebec on the other.
Part four is about Cyprus, divided between Greek and Turk for centuries and kept in peace by the United Nations Force -- nonetheless a civilized piece of cake after the Congo. Canada was one of the major contributors of peacekeepers on the island. Then we blew it, closing our diplomatic mission, and abdicating an honourable role in a situation that lingers on. That was the 1968-1970 farewell to the decade of Blazes.
Since those days in South Africa, Russia, the Congo and Cyprus, none of the countries can be said to have solved all of the problems that faced them then. Instability concerns all, making Blazes Along a Diplomatic Trail of contemporary relevance.
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Pete Welding (ED.)
Toby Byron (ED.)
Hardcover
$11.99
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
$236.28
Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
Trump, Mary L.
Hardcover
$9.99
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
$30.40
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
From $12.99
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
$12.99
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
From $12.99
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
From $12.99
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Cooper, Christian
Hardcover
$11.99
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
$88.50
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
$17.05
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Wittman, Robert K.
Kinney, David
Paperback
From $10.99
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
$20.89
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
$9.99
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
$17.05
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
$9.99
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
From $14.99
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
From $19.99
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
$19.80
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
From $19.99
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover
$28.80