On History: Tariq Ali and Oliver Stone in Conversation

Tariq Ali · Oliver Stone

Nov 2011 · Haymarket Books

About this ebook

These prominent filmmakers, “two of our most provocative and radical voices,” discuss American historical events that have been forgotten—or hidden (Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation).
 
In working together on two challenging documentaries—South of the Border and the Untold History of the United States series for Showtime—filmmaker Oliver Stone engaged with author and filmmaker Tariq Ali in a probing, hard-hitting conversation on the politics of history.
 
Their dialogue brings to light a number of forgotten—or deliberately buried—episodes of American history, from the US intervention against the Russian Revolution to the dynamic radicalism of the Wobblies; to how Henry Wallace’s nomination for the vice presidency was deliberately thwarted by Democratic Party machine insiders; to the ongoing close connections between various US presidents and the Saudi royal family.
 
For Stone, an Academy Award–winner, and Ali, an acclaimed novelist and journalist—two of our most insightful observers on history and popular culture—no topic is sacred, no orthodoxy goes unchallenged.

About the author

Tariq Ali is an English Pakistaki author who will be featured at the Byron Bay Writers' Festival 2015. William Oliver Stone was born on September 15, 1946 in New York City. He attended Yale University for two years but left to enlist the U.S. Army requesting combat duty in Vietnam. He fought with the 25th Infantry Division, then with the First Cavalry Division, earning a Bronze Star, a Army Commendation Medal, and a Purple Heart before his discharge in 1968 after 15 months. Stone graduated from film school at New York University in 1971, where he was mentored by director Martin Scorsese. He is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. In the late 1970s, Stone was a scriptwriter and directed his first two films Seizure and The Hand. In 1978 he won his first Academy Award, after adapting true-life jail tale Midnight Express into a hit film for British director Alan Parker (the two would later collaborate on a 1996 movie of stage musical Evita). His other films include Scarface, Conan the Barbarian, JFK, and Natural Born Killers. He received two more Academy Awards for his work on the films Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July. His book, The Untold History of The United States, was published in 2012.