Judith Nies

In 1998 Orion magazine published "THE BLACK MESA SYNDROME: Indian Lands Black Gold," an essay which became a finalist for the John Oakes Award in Distinguished Environmental Journalism. This story of energy exploitation on Indian lands is still posted on many environmental and Native American websites. In 2007 editor and author Barry Lopez included the article in this pathbreaking anthology devoted to exploring the changing ways we understand the relationship between people and the natural world.

THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND:
A Narrative History of the Sixties

A MUST READ POLITICAL HISTORY FOR OUR TIMES

How the '60s Shaped Us

At the height of the Vietnam War protests, Judith Nies held “the most interesting job in Washington” as the chief staff assistant to a core group of anti-war congressmen. A graduate of John Hopkins School of Advance International Studies (SAIS) with an impressive international resume, Nies had everything she needed to succeed in Washington except for one obvious characteristic: she was the wrong gender.

In THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND: A Narrative History of the 1960’s and How Women Transformed America (Harper Collins, June 3, 2008), Nies chronicles her struggle to cope with and finally overcome the limited opportunities for women in society and politics. Shocked to find herself the focus of an FBI investigation due to her political activities, Nies traded in her role as a dutiful wife and marginalized employee to become one of a growing number of brave women who carved out a new path toward social reform.

A daring political activist and writer, Nies expertly intermingles her personal journey with insightful depictions of the pivotal events that shaped the civil rights era, such as:

• The 1961 protest of 50,000 housewives across the nation that helped bring the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to the forefront of Congressional focus

• The 1968 women’s liberation protest of the Miss America Pageant, which effectively ended male-only newsrooms (and sparked the birth of the term “bra burners”).

• Telling portrayals of the women who led the Feminist movement – from Gloria Steinem to Congresswoman Bella Abzug

At the same time, Nies played a key part in modernizing the political tenor of the late-1960’s herself – exposing the institutionalized sexism on Capitol Hill in her first published article, orchestrating the removal of the separate “Ladies Gallery” overlooking the House floor, and leading the Women in Fellowships committee, which would entitle women to become Rhodes Scholars and Nieman recipients for the first time in history.

THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND is a compelling and perceptive biography for our current political landscape that presents the underpinnings of the civil rights era in a fresh and personal way.

NINE WOMEN:
Portraits from the American Radical Tradition
(University of California Press, Fall 2002)

The expanded edition of the highly acclaimed narrative history by Judith Nies on America’s radical activists

“Buy Nies’s book and read it aloud faithfully, until all of you, young and old, have shared and incorporated into your vision of America the heroic, unique and visionary contribution women have made to the history of these United States.”
Cynthia Warrick Kemper, Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Nies begins here to restore the great women radicals to the tradition, knowing that to think of these heroic women simply as fighters for women’s suffrage…is to impoverish …the larger political tradition of which it is a part.”
Frances Putnam Fritchman, In These Times

In an expanded edition of her history of American women radicals, Judith Nies has added biographical essays on feminist Bella Abzug, civil rights visionary Fannie Lou Hamer, and a new essay on women environmental activists. Included are portraits of Sarah Moore Grimke, who rejected her life as a Southern aristocrat and slaveholder to promote women's rights and the abolition of slavery; Harriet Tubman, an escaped slave who led more than 300 slaves to freedom on the Underground Railway; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the first woman to run for Congress, who advocated for women's rights to own property, to vote, and to divorce; Mother Jones, "the Joan of Arc of the coalfields," one of the most inspiring voices of the American labor movement; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who worked for the reform of America's most cherished institutions, the home and motherhood; Anna Louise Strong, an intrepid journalist who covered revolutions in China and Russia; and Dorothy Day, cofounder of the Catholic Worker movement, who fed and sheltered the hungry and homeless in New York's Bowery for more than forty years.

NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY:
A Chronology of a Culture's Vast Achievements and Their Links to World Events (NY: Ballantine, l996)

A New Perspective on Native American History: A Chronological Account of its Place on the World Stage

A breakthrough reference guide, the first book of its kind to recognize and explore the rich, unfolding experiences of the indigenous American peoples as they evolved against a global backdrop. This invaluable history takes an important first step toward a true understanding of the depth, breadth, and scope of a long-neglected aspect of our heritage.

"here from the earliest times to l997, are the most important events in world history juxtaposed with crucial events in the history of American native peoples...highly recommended..."
Katherine Powers, The Boston Globe

"A superb book, well-researched, vividly written...It should be in every library."
Harvard Review

"Of indespensable help to all history instructors is Judith Nies' Native American History ..."
National Endowment for the Humanities/ Saddleback Seminar