Norris Church Mailer, American author and model, died from gastrointestinal cancer she was , 61

 Norris Church Mailer (born Barbara Jean Davis  in Brooklyn Heights)^[1][2] was the widow of American novelist Norman Mailer, and author of the memoir A Ticket to the Circus and of several novels died from gastrointestinal cancer she was , 61.
Prior to her relationship with Mailer, she married Larry Norris, gave birth to son Matthew in 1972, and was divorced in 1975. After her divorce, she claimed to have "had a fling" with Bill Clinton.^[3]

(January 31, 1949 in Atkins, Arkansas, – November 21, 2010)

Life with Norman Mailer

After her divorce, she lived in Russellville, Arkansas, taught high-school art,^[2] and wrote about a hundred pages of a novel, which she would later reshape into Windchill Summer, and publish in 2000.
She had read Norman Mailer's biography of Marilyn Monroe and arranged in 1975 to attend a party in Russellville at which he was the guest. They reportedly went to her home after that party.^[3] After he left Arkansas, she mailed him a love poem, which he returned to her, marked up with his compositional criticism.^[2] Four months later, having left her job,^[2] she moved with his help to a brownstone row house^[4] apartment in Brooklyn Heights, and became a model with Wilhelmina Models.^[2] She took on as a first name her former married name (Norris), and took Mailer's suggestion of "Church" as a surname.^[3]
Their son, John Buffalo Mailer, was born in 1978. They married in 1980,^[3] Church says she decided, in the early 1990s, to leave her relationship with him, over his extensive affairs, but he persuaded her otherwise.^[3]
Norman Mailer died in 2007.^[1] She published her memoir, A Ticket to the Circus, in 2010, and explains the title as describing her life with him, his seven children by his other wives, and her own two birth-children: "Well, I bought a ticket to the circus. I don't know why I was surprised to see elephants."^[3]

Health

From 2000 onwards, she had had six major operations for gastrointestinal cancer, the disease which would claim her life.^[2] She died on November 21, 2010 at her home in Brooklyn Heights following her eleven year battle with cancer.^[5]

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David Nolan American political activist, Libertarian Party founder, died from a stroke.he was 66,

David Fraser Nolan was an American activist and politician. He was one of the founders of the Libertarian Party of the United States, having hosted the meeting in 1971 at which the Party was founded died from a stroke.he was  66,.^[2][3] Nolan subsequently served the party in a number of roles including National Chair, editor of the party newsletter, chairman of the By-laws Committee, chairman of the Judicial Committee, and Chairman of the Platform Committee.
He is also known as the popularizer and^[4] as the inventor of the Nolan chart which attempts to improve on the simple left versus right political taxonomy by separating the issues of economic freedom and social freedom and presenting them in the format of a plane.


(November 23, 1943 – November 21, 2010^[1]) 

Early life and education

Nolan was born on November 23, 1943, in Washington, D. C., and grew up in Maryland. During high school, he read science fiction and became a fan of Robert Heinlein, whose libertarianism shaped his own ideology, as did the works of Ayn Rand. He enrolled at MIT, graduating with a B.S. in political science in 1966.^[5] He was a Unitarian Universalist.^[6]

Political activism

While the traditional political "left-right" spectrum is a line, the Nolan chart, created by David Nolan, is a plane, situating libertarianism in a wider gamut of political thought.

Nolan was a member of Young Americans for Freedom in 1969 when more than 300 libertarians organized to take control of the organization from conservatives. Many walked out after a physical confrontation sparked by the burning of a draft card in protest to a conservative proposal against draft resistance. While sympathizing with the radicals, Nolan remained with the organization.^[7] In 2009, David Nolan publicly endorsed the Free State Project,^[8] an attempt to move 20,000 Libertarians to New Hampshire to experience "Liberty in their Lifetimes".

Formation of the Libertarian Party

President Richard Nixon's 1971 imposition of wage and price controls, as well as his closing of the foreign gold window, were the final straws for Nolan and he initiated the Committee to Form a Libertarian Party. The group organized among a number of libertarians, including The Society for Individual Liberty, which had been formed by dissident members of Young Americans for Freedom. They officially founded the Libertarian Party on December 11, 1971.^[5]

Later political activities

He ran unsuccessfully as a Libertarian for the United States House of Representatives in Arizona's 8th congressional district election, 2006 and received 1.9% of the vote. He also ran as the Libertarian candidate in the 2010 U.S. Senate election in Arizona, and received 63,000 votes,^[9] 4.7% of the total.

Death

David Nolan died of a stroke in Tucson, Arizona on November 21, 2010, while driving.^[10]

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Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, American museum founder (DuSable Museum of African American History) died she was , 95

 Margaret Taylor-Burroughs was a prominent African American artist and writer and a co-founder of the DuSable Museum of African American History  died she was , 95. She also helped to establish the South Side Community Art Center, whose opening on May 1, 1941 ^[1] was dedicated by the First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt ^[2]. There at the age of 23 she served as the youngest member of its board of directors. Dr. Burroughs was a prolific writer, with her efforts directed toward the exploration of the Black experience and to children, especially to their appreciation of their cultural identity and to their introduction and growing awareness of art.

(November 11, 1917 – November 21, 2010)

 Early life and education

Burroughs was born in St. Rose, Louisiana, and by the time she was five years old the family had moved to Chicago. There she attended Englewood High School along with Gwendolyn Brooks, who in 1985-1986 served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (now United States Poet Laureate). As classmates, the two joined the NAACP Youth Council. She earned teacher's certificates from Chicago Teachers College in 1936 and 1939, and in 1948 earned her Masters in Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Chicago after having earned her Bachelor's there in 1946. Taylor-Burroughs married the artist Bernard Goss (1913-1966) in 1939, and they divorced in 1947. In 1949 she married Charles Gordon Burroughs, and they had been married for forty-five years at the time he passed away in 1994.^[3]

Professional life

Taylor-Burroughs taught at DuSable High School from 1946 to 1969, and from 1969 to 1979 was a professor of humanities at Kennedy-King College, a community college in Chicago. She also taught African American Art and Culture at Elmhurst College in 1968.

The DuSable Museum

Margaret and her husband Charles co-founded what is now called the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago in 1961. The institution was originally known as the Ebony Museum of Negro History and Art and made its debut in the living room of their house at 3806 S. Michigan Avenue in the Bronzeville neighborhood on Chicago's south side ^[4], and Taylor-Burroughs served as its executive director for the first ten years of its existence. She was proud of the institution's grass-roots beginnings: "...we’re the only one that grew out of the indigenous Black community. We weren’t started by anybody downtown; we were started by ordinary folks.^[5].”
The museum moved to its current location at 740 E. 56th Place in Washington Park in 1973, and today is the oldest museum of Black culture in the United States.

Public art and recognition

The holdings of the Koehnline Museum of Art at Oakton Community College include a collection of fifteen of Burroughs' linocut prints from the 1990's ^[6].
Taylor-Burroughs won the Paul Robeson Award in 1989.

Writing

• Jasper, the drummin' boy (1947)
• Whip me whop me pudding, and other stories of Riley Rabbit and his fabulous friends (1966)
• For Malcolm; poems on the life and the death of Malcolm X Dudley Randall and Margaret G. Burroughs, editors
• What shall I tell my children who are Black? (1968)
• Did you feed my cow? Street games, chants, and rhymes (1969)
• Africa, my Africa (1970)
• What shall I tell my children?: An addenda (1975)
• Interlude : seven musical poems by Frank Marshall Davis, Margaret T. Burroughs, editor. (1985)
• Minds flowing free : original poetry by "The Ladies" women's division of Cook County Department of Corrections, Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, editor (1986)
• A very special tribute in honor of a very special person, Eugene Pieter Romayn Feldman, b. 1915-d. 1987 - poems, essays, letters by and to Eugene Pieter Romayn Feldman Margaret T. Burroughs, editor (1988)
• His name was Du Sable and he was the first (1990)
• Africa name book (1994)
• A shared heritage : art by four African Americans by William E. Taylor and Harriet G. Warkel with essays by Margaret T.G. Burroughs and others (1996)
• The Beginner's Guide to Collecting Fine Art, African American Style Ana M. Allen and Margaret Taylor Burroughs (1998)
• The tallest tree in the forest (1998)
• Humanist and glad to be (2003)
• My first husband & his four wives (me, being the first) (2003)

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Laurie Bembenek, American convicted murderer, died from liver and kidney failure.she was , 52

Lawrencia "Bambi" Bembenek , known as Laurie Bembenek, was convicted of murdering her husband's ex-wife, Christine Schultz, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on May 28, 1981. Her story garnered national attention after she escaped from Taycheedah Correctional Institution and was recaptured in Canada, an episode which inspired a TV movie and the slogan "Run, Bambi, Run". Upon winning a new trial, she pled no contest to second-degree murder and was sentenced to time served and ten years probation. Since then, she had sought to have the sentence overturned.^[1]
Bembenek was a former Milwaukee police officer who had been fired and had gone on to sue the department, claiming that it engaged in sexual discrimination and other illegal activities. She worked briefly as a waitress at a Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Playboy Club. At the time of her arrest, she was working for Marquette University's Public Safety Department, in downtown Milwaukee.
On November 20, 2010, Bembenek died at a hospice facility in Portland, Oregon, at the age of 52.^[2]

(August 15, 1958 — November 20, 2010)

Biography

Bembenek was born on August 15, 1958. In March 1980, she had joined the Milwaukee Police Department as a trainee. There she met and became close with a fellow trainee named Judy Zess. At a rock concert in May 1980, Zess was arrested for smoking marijuana. Bembenek's subsequent dismissal from the Police Department on August 25 stemmed from her involvement in filing a false report on Zess' arrest.^[3]

Murder of Christine Schultz

On May 28, 1981, at approximately 2:15am, 30-year-old Christine Schultz was murdered by a single .38 caliber pistol shot fired pointblank into her back and through her heart. She'd been gagged and blindfolded and her hands were tied in front of her with rope. Her two sons, then 7 and 11 years old, found her face down on her bed and bleeding.^[4] The older boy, Sean, had seen the assailant and described him as a masked male figure in a green army jacket and black shoes. He also said the man had a long (approx. 6") reddish-colored ponytail.^[5]

Christine Schultz was the ex-wife of Laurie Bembenek's then-husband, Elfred "Fred" Schultz, a Milwaukee Police Department detective. They'd been divorced six months at the time of the murder. Fred Schultz initially stated he was on duty investigating a burglary with his partner, Michael Durfee, at the time of the murder, but years later he admitted they were actually drinking at a local pub. When ballistics testing revealed it was his off-duty revolver that had been the murder weapon, suspicion shifted to Laurie Bembenek, as she had been alone in the apartment she shared with Schultz and had access to both the gun and a key to Christine's house that Fred Schultz had secretly copied from his oldest son's house key.^[4]
Fred Schultz had previously been exonerated in the fatal shooting of a Glendale, Wisconsin, police officer on July 23, 1975. The Glendale officer, George Robert Sassan, had arrested a subject in a bar while off-duty. Milwaukee Police officers, including Schultz, responded to the call in suburban Glendale (outside their jurisdiction), reportedly mistook Sassan as a suspect and shot him to death when he turned toward them, holding a gun. Schultz and his partner were cleared by the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office in the shooting of Officer Sassan.^[6]

Trial

Bembenek's trial generated tremendous publicity, and newspapers began referring to her as "Bambi" Bembenek (a nickname she disliked). The prosecution portrayed her as a loose woman addicted to expensive living who wanted Christine Schultz dead so that her new husband would no longer have to pay alimony to his ex-wife. The prosecution pointed out that Bembenek also had financial problems. The prosecution claimed that Bembenek was the only person with the motive, means and opportunity to carry out the crime. The strongest evidence was two human hairs, found at the crime scene, which matched ones taken from the hairbrush of the defendant. The gun used to kill Christine Schultz turned out to be Bembenek's husband's off-duty revolver. The prosecution claimed that Bembenek was the only person besides Fred Schultz who had access to this weapon. Blood was found on the gun. Bembenek supposedly also had access to a key to Christine Schultz's home. There were no signs of a break-in and no valuables taken. Schultz's eldest son stated that Bembenek was not the person who had held up their house and shot his mother.^[7]
Witnesses testified that Bembenek had spoken often of killing Christine Schultz. The prosecution produced a witness who said Bembenek offered to pay him to carry out the murder. According to witnesses for the prosecution, Bembenek owned a green jogging suit similar to the one described by Schultz's son. It was pointed out that Bembenek owned a clothes line and a blue bandanna similar to what was used to bind and gag the victim. A wig found in the plumbing system of Bembenek's apartment matched fibers found at the murder scene. A boutique employee testified that Bembenek purchased such a wig shortly before the murder.^[8]

Conviction

She was found guilty of first-degree murder in March 1982 and sentenced to life in prison in Taycheedah Correctional Institution.

Post-trial publicity

Shortly after Bembenek's conviction, Fred Schultz filed for divorce and began saying publicly that he now believed Bembenek was guilty. Bembenek filed three unsuccessful appeals of her conviction, citing police errors in handling of key evidence and the fact that one of the prosecution's witnesses, Judy Zess, had recanted her testimony, stating it was made under duress. Bembenek and her supporters also alleged that Milwaukee police may have singled her out for prosecution because of her role as a key witness in a federal investigation into police corruption. Bembenek's supporters suggested that Fred Schultz may have arranged to have someone else murder his ex-wife. One possible candidate was Frederick Horenberger, a career criminal who briefly worked with Schultz on a remodeling project and was a former boyfriend of Judy Zess.^[4] A disguised Horenberger had robbed and beaten Judy Zess several weeks prior to Christine Schultz's murder and would later serve a ten-year sentence for that crime.^[9]
According to a number of affidavits which emerged following Bembenek's conviction, Horenberger boasted of killing Schultz to other inmates while he was in jail. Yet publicly, Horenberger vehemently denied any involvement in the Schultz murder up until his suicide in November 1991, following a robbery and hostage-taking stand-off in which he had been involved.^[10]
There were questions raised as to the accuracy of the information and the evidence used in the trial. Dr. Elaine Samuels, the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy, had originally concluded that hairs recovered from the body were consistent with that of the victim; after Dr. Samuels had come to that conclusion, the hair evidence was examined by Diane Hanson, a hair analyst from a crime lab in Madison, Wisconsin. Hanson stated that two of the hairs were consistent with samples taken from Laurie Bembenek's hairbrush. Dr. Samuels refuted that claim, stating in a 1983 letter, quoted in the Toronto Star in 1991, that "I recovered no blonde or red hairs of any length or texture ... [A]ll of the hairs I recovered from the body were brown and were grossly identical to the hair of the victim ... [I] do not like to suggest that evidence was altered in any way, but I can find no logical explanation for what amounted to the mysterious appearance of blonde hair in an envelope that contained no such hair at the time it was sealed by me."^[11]
The apartment where Laurie and Fred lived shared drainage with another apartment. In the shared drainpipe was found a brownish-red wig which matched some of the hairs found on the victim's body. The woman who occupied the other apartment testified that Judy Zess had knocked on her door and asked to use her bathroom; after Zess used the woman's bathroom, the plumbing was mysteriously clogged. And Zess had admitted to owning a brownish-red wig.^[12]
In prison, Bembenek became a model inmate who was highly respected by her fellow prisoners. She became one of the few convicted killers to ever earn a college degree, graduating from the University of Wisconsin–Parkside. She also met and became engaged to Nick Gugliatto, the brother of another prisoner. On July 15, 1990, she escaped from prison with Gugliatto's help. Her escape reignited publicity surrounding her case, and she became something of a folk hero. A song was written about her, and automobile bumper stickers were sold with the slogan "Run, Bambi, Run".
She fled with Gugliatto to Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, where the couple spent three months as fugitives before being apprehended. Bembenek pleaded for refugee status in Canada, claiming that she was being persecuted by a conspiracy between the police department and the judicial system in Wisconsin. The Canadian government showed some sympathy for her case, and before returning her to Wisconsin, obtained a commitment that Milwaukee officials would conduct a judicial review of her case. The review did not find evidence of crimes by police or prosecutors, but detailed seven major police blunders which had occurred during the Christine Schultz murder investigation, and she won the right to a new trial. Rather than risk a second conviction, however, Bembenek pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and received a reduced sentence which was commuted to time served. She was released from prison in November 1992, having served a little over ten years.^[13]

Life after prison

Bembenek had written a book about her experience, titled Woman on Trial (ISBN 0-00-215746-2). Since her release, she had various legal and personal problems. She was arrested again on marijuana possession charges, filed for bankruptcy, developed hepatitis C and other health problems. She also admitted to being an alcoholic. She legally changed her name to Laurie Bembenek in 1994.
In 1996, she moved to Washington.^[2]
In 2002, Bembenek either fell or jumped from a second-story window, breaking her leg so badly that it had to be amputated below the knee. Bembenek claimed that she had been confined in an apartment by handlers for the Dr. Phil television show and was injured while attempting to escape.^[14]
Bembenek continued to insist she was innocent, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to overturn her no contest plea, saying such a plea cannot be withdrawn. In April 2008, Bembenek filed a petition with the United States Supreme Court seeking a reversal of the second murder conviction. Bembenek's attorney points to evidence not heard in the original trial, including ballistics tests matching the murder bullets to the gun owned by Fred Schultz, male DNA found on the victim, evidence the victim was sexually assaulted, and the eyewitness testimony of the two young sons who said they saw a heavyset, masked man. Bembenek's petition argued the court needed to clarify whether defendants who plead guilty or no contest have an opportunity to review evidence comparable to the rights of those who plead not guilty. Her appeal was denied in June 2008.^[15]
Her case was the inspiration for two television movies^[16] and various books and articles portraying her as the victim of a miscarriage of justice. However, she was unsuccessful in her efforts to have her conviction overturned.
In 2004, MSNBC produced and aired a biography of Laurie Bembenek on their Headliners and Legends television show. Bembenek did not take part in the show.
She was interviewed by Mike Jacobs of WTMJ in Milwaukee for an interview which aired on October 28 and 29, 2010.^[17]

Death

On November 16, 2010, WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee reported that Bembenek was slipping in and out of consciousness and near death in a hospice care center, suffering from liver and kidney failure.^[18] On November 20, 2010, she died at a hospice facility in Portland, Oregon, aged 52.^[2]

Television movies about Bembenek

• Calendar Girl, Cop, Killer? The Bambi Bembenek Story (1992) IMDb link

Lindsay Frost starred as Lawrencia 'Bambi' Bembenek

• Woman on Trial: The Lawrencia Bembenek Story (1993) IMDb link

Tatum O'Neal starred as Lawrencia Bembenek

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Roxana Briban, Romanian soprano, committed suicide she was 39,

Roxana Briban was a well-known Romanian operatic soprano  committed suicide she was  39,.^[1]
Born in Bucharest, Roxana Briban first became interested in music at the age of six, when she began to sing and play the violin, soon becoming a soloist of the Romanian Radio Children's Choir, which supports over 300 concerts in Romania and abroad. She attended the George Enescu Music High School in Bucharest, which she left in 1995. Later graduating from the Bucharest National University of Music, Briban received awards from the Romanian Musical Forum and the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company (SRR).^[2] She made her debut as a soloist with the Romanian National Opera in 2000 as the Contessa in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.^[3][4]

(28 October 1971 - 20 November 2010) 


She made her international debut at the Vienna State Opera in 2003 in Bizet's Carmen^[3] as Michaela, and she continued to appear there until her final season in 2009-2010, when she played the roles of Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Mimi in La Boheme, Amelia Grimaldi in Simon Boccanegra, Countess in The Marriage of Figaro and Tatiana in Eugene Onegin. She also appeared at the Vienna Volksoper, Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Théâtre du Capitole, the Teatro Municipal de Santiago in Chile and the Muziektheater in Amsterdam.^[2].

Briban's lirico-spinto soprano voice allowed her to play a wide variety of roles, from Leila in The Pearl Fishers, Micaela in Carmen, Helena in Mephistopheles, or as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro, Donna Elvira and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni and Violetta Valery in La Traviata, Alice Ford in Falstaff, Amelia Grimaldi in Simon Boccanegra and Aida in Aida, Elisabetta de Valois in Don Carlo, as well as playing the roles of Mimi in La Boheme and Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly.
Also in her repertoire were vocal-symphonic works by Bach, Handel, Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Mahler, Shostakovich and Hindemith.
Her last public appearance took place at the Royal Palace in Warsaw in Poland, where she performed in a recital in celebration of Romania's National Day, on 1 December 2009.^[5]

She committed suicide, following a period of depression caused (according to her husband Alexandru Briban, whom she married in 1997) by the termination of her contract with the National Opera in June 2009. He stated that she had attempted suicide on other occasions and had been receiving treatment.^[2][6]

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Santha Devi, Indian actress has died she was , 85

Santha Devi  better known by her stage name Kozhikode Santha Devi, was an Indian Malayalam film and stage actress has died she was , 85. In a career spanning about sixty years, she acted in more than 1000 plays and about 480 films.^[1]

(1927 - 20 November 2010),

Biography

Santha Devi was born in Kozhikode in 1927 as the daughter of Thottathil Kannakkuruppu and Karthiyayani Amma as the seventh daughter of their 10 children. She did her studies from Sabha school and then B.E.M school. She got married at the age of 18 with her uncle's son Balakrishnan who was a Railway guard, but the relationship did not last long. He left Santha Devi after the couple had a son. Later, she got married to Kozhikode Abdul Kader, a popular Malayalam playback singer. He was a Christian during the time of their marriage and later changed his religion to Islam. She has two kids in her second marriage, Suresh Babu and the late Sathyajith.

She made her debut as an actress through a 1954 drama Smarakam written by Vasu Pradeep and directed by Kundanari Appu Nair. She made her cinema debut in Minnaminungu (1957) directed by Ramu Karyat. She has acted in over 480 movies including Moodupadam, Kuttikkuppayam, Kunjalimaraykkar, Iruttinte Athmavu, Sthalathe pradhana payyans and Adwaitham. Kerala Cafe, produced by director Ranjith, was her last movie where she enacted the role of a forlorn grandmother with no one to look after her. Besides movies, she was also active in television serials. Her most memorable roles are from Manasi and Minnukettu.
Santha Devi died on 20 November 2010 evening in a private hospital in Kozhikode.^[2]

Awards

She won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Yamanam (1992) directed by Bharath Gopi.^[3] She has received the Kerala State award for best Stage actress in 1968 for her role in Kudukkukal. In 1968, she received award from Thrissur Fine Arts Society and in 1973 she received best actress award again. In 1978, her acting in Ithu bhoomiyanu and Inquilabinte makkal fetched her Kerala Sangeetha Nadaka Acamedy's award for best actress. She won the Kerala Film Critics Association Award in 1979 and Kerala State Award for Best Actress in State plays in 1983 for Deepasthambham Mahashcharyam.^[1]
In 1992 she got Film critics award again. Santha Devi was awarded Premji award and later in 2005 the life time achievement award from Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi.

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Chalmers Johnson, American scholar and author died he was , 79

 Chalmers Ashby Johnson ^[1] was an American author and professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego died he was , 79.  He served in the Korean war, was a consultant for the CIA from 1967–1973, and chaired the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley from 1967 to 1972.^[2] He was also president and co-founder of the Japan Policy Research Institute (now based at the University of San Francisco), an organization promoting public education about Japan and Asia.^[3] He wrote numerous books including, most recently, three examinations of the consequences of American Empire: Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic.

(August 6, 1931 - November 20, 2010)

Biography

Johnson was born in 1931 in Phoenix, Arizona. He earned a B.A. degree in Economics in 1953 and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in political science in 1957 and 1961 respectively. Both of his advanced degrees were from the University of California, Berkeley. During the Korean War, Johnson served as a naval officer in Japan.^[4] He taught political science at the University of California from 1962 until he retired from teaching in 1992. He was best known early in his career for his scholarship on the subjects of China and Japan.^[5]

Johnson set the agenda for ten or fifteen years in social science scholarship on China with his book on peasant nationalism. His book MITI and the Japanese Miracle, on the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry was the preëminent study of the country's development and created the subfield of what could be called the political economy of development. He coined the term "developmental state". As a public intellectual, he first led the "Japan revisionists" who critiqued American neoliberal economics with Japan as a model; their arguments faded from view as the Japanese economy stagnated in the mid-90s and beyond. During this period, Johnson acted as a consultant for the Office of National Estimates, part of the CIA, contributing to analysis of China and Maoism.^[6]
Johnson was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1976. He served as Director of the Center for Chinese Studies (1967–72^[2]) and Chair of the Political Science Department at Berkeley, and held a number of important academic posts in area studies. He was a strong believer in the importance of language and historical training for doing serious research. Late in his career he became well known as a critic of "rational choice" approaches, particularly in the study of Japanese politics and political economy.
Johnson is perhaps today best known as a sharp critic of American imperialism. His book Blowback (2000) won a prize in 2001 from the Before Columbus Foundation, and was re-issued in an updated version in 2004. Sorrows of Empire, published in 2004, updated the evidence and argument from Blowback for the post-9/11 environment, and Nemesis concludes the trilogy. Johnson was featured as an expert talking head in the Eugene Jarecki-directed film Why We Fight^[3], which won the 2005 Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. In the past, Johnson has also written for the Los Angeles Times, the London Review of Books, Harper’s Magazine, and The Nation

The Blowback series

Johnson believed that the enforcement of American hegemony over the world constitutes a new form of global empire. Whereas traditional empires maintained control over subject peoples via colonies, since World War II the US has developed a vast system of hundreds of military bases around the world where it has strategic interests. A long-time Cold Warrior, he applauded the collapse of the Soviet Union: "I was a cold warrior. There's no doubt about that. I believed the Soviet Union was a genuine menace. I still think so."^[7] But at the same time he experienced a political awakening after the collapse of the Soviet Union, noting that instead of demobilizing its armed forces, the US accelerated its reliance on military solutions to problems both economic and political. The result of this militarism (as distinct from actual domestic defense) is more terrorism against the US and its allies, the loss of core democratic values at home, and an eventual disaster for the American economy. Of four books he wrote on this topic, the first three are referred to as The Blowback Trilogy:

• Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire

Chalmers Johnson summarized the intent of Blowback in the final chapter of Nemesis.

"In Blowback, I set out to explain why we are hated around the world. The concept "blowback" does not just mean retaliation for things our government has done to and in foreign countries. It refers to retaliation for the numerous illegal operations we have carried out abroad that were kept totally secret from the American public. This means that when the retaliation comes -- as it did so spectacularly on September 11, 2001 -- the American public is unable to put the events in context. So they tend to support acts intended to lash out against the perpetrators, thereby most commonly preparing the ground for yet another cycle of blowback. In the first book in this trilogy, I tried to provide some of the historical background for understanding the dilemmas we as a nation confront today, although I focused more on Asia -- the area of my academic training -- than on the Middle East."^[8]

• The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic

Chalmers Johnson summarizes the intent of The Sorrows of Empire in the final chapter of Nemesis.

"The Sorrows of Empire was written during the American preparations for and launching of the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. I began to study our continuous military buildup since World War II and the 737 military bases we currently maintain in other people's countries. This empire of bases is the concrete manifestation of our global hegemony, and many of the blowback-inducing wars we have conducted had as their true purpose the sustaining and expanding of this network. We do not think of these overseas deployments as a form of empire; in fact, most Americans do not give them any thought at all until something truly shocking, such as the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, brings them to our attention. But the people living next door to these bases and dealing with the swaggering soldiers who brawl and sometimes rape their women certainly think of them as imperial enclaves, just as the people of ancient Iberia or nineteenth-century India knew that they were victims of foreign colonization."^[9]

• Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic

Chalmers Johnson summarizes the intent of the book Nemesis.

“In Nemesis, I have tried to present historical, political, economic, and philosophical evidence of where our current behavior is likely to lead. Specifically, I believe that to maintain our empire abroad requires resources and commitments that will inevitably undercut our domestic democracy and in the end produce a military dictatorship or its civilian equivalent. The founders of our nation understood this well and tried to create a form of government – a republic – that would prevent this from occurring. But the combination of huge standing armies, almost continuous wars, military Keynesianism, and ruinous military expenses have destroyed our republican structure in favor of an imperial presidency. We are on the cusp of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire. Once a nation is started down that path, the dynamics that apply to all empires come into play – isolation, overstretch, the uniting of forces opposed to imperialism, and bankruptcy. Nemesis stalks our life as a free nation.”^[10]

• Dismantling the Empire: America's Last Best Hope

Johnson outlines how the United States can reverse American hegemony.

Audio and Video

• Audio interview March 2010 on Media Matters with Bob McChesney
• Video/Audio: Chalmers Johnson on the military-industrial complex October 4-7, 2008 on The Real News with Paul Jay
• Audio: Is America on the brink of destruction through imperial over-reach?
• Audio interview February 2007 on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman
• Chalmers Johnson, Evil Empire, A Talk by Chalmers Johnson, DVD, 2006

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