Digital Commons Network^™

Social Piracy In Colonial And Contemporary Southeast Asia, Miles T. Bird

CMC Senior Theses

According to the firsthand account of James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, it appears that piracy in the state of British Malaya in the mid-1800s was community-driven and egalitarian, led by the interests of heroic figures like the Malayan pirate Si Rahman. These heroic figures share traits with Eric Hobsbawm’s social bandit, and in this case may be ascribed as social pirates. In contrast, late 20^th-century and early 21^st-century pirates in the region operate in loosely structured, hierarchical groups beholden to transnational criminal syndicates. Evidence suggests that contemporary pirates do not form the egalitarian communities of their …

Rape As A Weapon Of War: The Demystification Of The German Wehrmacht During The Second World War, Alisse Baumgarten

CMC Senior Theses

The German Armed Forces were originally thought to be completely innocent of all war crimes associated with unethical Nazi racial policies. This has been proven not to be the case. History has adjusted itself to show that Wehrmacht forces were guilty of virtually every war crime except for the sexual violation foreign women. Due to the long-standing assumption that Nazi racial ideology prevented the intermingling of the “Aryan” race with the “unworthy” Eastern European races, this myth was rarely questioned. Given the lack of hard evidence proving that civilian women were raped by invading Wehrmacht troops, a firm conclusion is …

From Housewife To Household Weapon: Women From The Bolivian Mines Organize Against Economic Exploitation And Political Oppression, Catherine A. Raney

CMC Senior Theses

Drawing from oral histories which I gathered while living in Bolivia, this thesis tracks the start, growth, and development of the political movement led by women from the Bolivian mines from 1961 to 1987. This movement helped create a new political culture that recognized the importance of women’s participation in politics and human rights. Today, this culture lives on. Bolivia has not experienced a coup since 1980, and the nation’s human rights record has improved dramatically since the 1980s as well.

Prior to the mid-1980s, Bolivia was often under the control of oppressive military regimes that resorted to many different …

Indivisible And Inseparable: The Austro-Hungarian Army And The Question Of Decline And Fall, Kyle D. Woods

CMC Senior Theses

The title of this work is “Indivisible and Inseparable” the motto of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This motto is just one of many ways in the Austro-Hungarian Empire fought against the centrifugal forces seeking to destroy it. I argue here that the historic theory of decline and fall is misguided as a model for understanding the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and question its usefulness when applied to other nation states and empires as well. I suggest that the Austro-Hungarian military, specifically its condition prior to the First World War, is an ideal lens for exploring the dissolution of the Empire …

Native Newspapers: The Emergence Of The American Indian Press 1960-Present, Russell M. Page

CMC Senior Theses

During the 1960s and 1970s, tribes across Indian Country struggled for tribal sovereignty against “termination” policies that aimed to disintegrate the federal government’s trust responsibilities and treaty obligations to tribes and assimilate all Indians into mainstream society. Individual tribes, pan-Indian organizations, and militant Red Power activists rose up in resistance to these policies and fought for self-determination: a preservation of Indian distinctiveness and social and political autonomy. This thesis examines a crucial, but often overlooked, element of the self-determination movement. Hundreds of tribal and national-scope activist newspapers emerged during this era and became the authentic voices of American Indians and …