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Meaning In History? The Young Hegelian's Battle For Historical Meaning And The Resurgence Of Nihilism, Angelo J. Letizia

History Theses & Dissertations

After the Reign of Terror, the German thinker J.H. Jacobi saw only two options for Europe: faith in God or nihilism, the belief in nothing. His ultimatum between faith and nihilism for the modern era called into question for some thinkers the entire revolutionary project and its ideals of reason and self government. Two answers to Jacobi's ultimatum were put forth by the German philosophers Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel who rejected both faith and nihilism, and instead crafted a vision of progress, and Arthur Schopenhauer who opted for nihilism. Jacobi's ultimatum, and Hegel and Schopenhauer's answers to it, opened up …

"Adoption Will Determine The Worthiest Successor": Roman Imperial Adoption, Stephen C. Hebert

History Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines the process by which successors to the Roman Principate were chosen under the Julio-Claudians, Flavians, and Antonine dynasties. Rome extended its hegemony over the Mediterranean and Europe with citizen-farmer legionaries who were loyal to the senate and Roman state. Warfare necessitated the creation of a professional army in which loyalty shifted from that of the state and senate to their respective military commander. Generals such as Sulla and Caesar used their legions to gain power establishing new political precedence from which future ambitious generals built upon, ultimately leading to the end of the Republic and the birth …

The Office Of War Information Vs. The Foreign Nationalities Branch: The Roosevelt Administration And The Poles, Kristen Brooke Archambeau

History Theses & Dissertations

The Roosevelt Administration created two information agencies during World War II. The Office of War Information, consisting of a Domestic Branch and Overseas Operations Branch, disseminated information to occupied nations overseas. The Office of Strategic Services' Foreign Nationalities Branch gathered information on the political undercurrents of ethnic groups within the United States and provided information on their possible effects to the administration.

This work seeks to compare the policies of the Overseas Branch of the Office of War information with those of the Foreign Nationalities Branch of the Office of Strategic Services, with the Poles and Polish-Americans as a case …

"In This Time Of Close Trial": An Examination Of Quaker Women's Roles And Political Activism In Philadelphia, September 1777-April 1778, Kimberly Ann Stinedurf

History Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the flexibility of Quaker women's roles in their domestic, sacred, and secular communities. It traces the experiences of a group of Philadelphia Quaker wives and mothers who were forced to support their families when revolutionary authorities arrested and banished their husbands to Virginia during the American Revolution. First, it investigates Quaker women's duties in their households and suggests that gendered responsibilities overlapped significantly for eighteenth-century Quaker men and women. By considering the Quaker husband-wife relationship and the Quaker parent-child relationship, one may conclude that Quaker gendered tasks were not rigid. Chapter Three proposes the idea that Quaker …

The Norfolk Hoax: Fear Social Violence And Ethnicity At The Norfolk Navy Yard During The Strike Of 1877, John Douglas Forrest

History Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines the contributing causes why the command of the Norfolk Navy Yard feared a labor uprising or riot in the surrounding community of Portsmouth, Virginia in July 1877. Racial, class and ethnic tensions heightened to the point that on the morning of July 25, 1877, unknown agents distributed pamphlets around the city, which appealed to workers at the Navy Yard. A culture of social violence was prevalent during Norfolk and Portsmouth's post-Civil War existence. The ground-level view offered by this thesis is of the intense fear that spread across the country in 1877 as a result of severe …

Revival And Revolution: The Political Social And Religious Role Of Colonial Virginia's New Light Presbyterians, Bethany N. Austin

History Theses & Dissertations

Throughout historical scholarship and popular memory, Presbyterians have been considered one of the more radical elements in the colonial American population because of ethnic background, theological ideas relating to the Scottish Enlightenment, and dissenting Protestants' position in opposition to Church-State structures. This study will examine the political theories, activities, and results of the New Light Presbyterians in Virginia's Tidewater and Piedmont regions between 1740 and 1780.

Chapter I describes trends in the historiographical literature of the Great Awakening, religion and the American Revolution, and more specifically, the politics of Presbyterianism in colonial Virginia, in addition to outlining the origins of …