History Commons^™

Review Of Nazan Çiçek, The Young Ottomans: Turkish Critics Of The Eastern Question In The Late Nineteenth Century, Bedross Der Matossian

Department of History: Faculty Publications

The ‘Eastern Question’, coined by European powers in the nineteenth century, came to denote the diplomatic and political problems posed by the decline of the Ottoman Empire. The historiography on the Eastern Question has been mostly Eurocentric, addressing the diplomatic history of the Eastern Question without taking into consideration the Eastern actors of the Question, that is, the Muslim Turks. One of the major actors to emerge during the height of the Eastern Question was a group known as the Young Ottomans who became extremely critical of the Tanzimat reforms in general and the Ottoman Porte’s handling of the Eastern …

Researching North America: Sir Humphrey Gilbert’S 1583 Expedition And A Reexamination Of Early Modern English Colonization In The North Atlantic World, Nathan Probasco

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s 1583 expedition to North America was the first attempt by an Englishman to colonize beyond the British Isles, and yet it has not been subject to thorough scholarly analysis for more than seventy years. Although it is often overlooked or misinterpreted by scholars, an exhaustive examination of the voyage reveals the complexity and preparedness of this and similar early modern English expeditions. Gilbert recruited several specialists who expended considerable time and resources while researching and otherwise working in support of the voyage. Their efforts secured much needed capital, a necessary component of expensive private voyages, and they …

A Widow’S Will: Examining The Challenges Of Widowhood In Early Modern England And America, Alyson D. Alvarez

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

While English women in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had different social and economic circumstances, many were able to gain autonomy and power in their widowhood. Widows who were able to gain autonomy faced a number of challenges as they attempted to live and function in a patriarchal society. One of the factors that affected the challenges of a widow was her social standing. In this thesis I argue that widows of all means encountered a challenges from the patriarchal society in which they resided. The number and severity of difficulties that a widow confronted depended on several factors. I …

"Il Signor Mengele Di Bolzano": L'Alto Adige Come Via Di Fuga Dei Criminali Nazisti (1945-1951), Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Il tecnico altoatesino Richard Klement, il meccanico bolzanino Helmut Gregor: apparentemente semplici cittadini emigrati in Argentina dopo le devastazioni della seconda guerra mondiale. Ma questi nomi ne celano altri ben più noti: Adolf Eichmann e Josef Mengele. Sono solo due delle migliaia di nazisti che dopo la sconfitta, attraverso l'Alto Adige e il porto di Genova, riuscirono a raggiungere terre più sicure come Spagna, Sudamerica, Medio Oriente. Eichmann e Mengele si erano avvalsi per la loro fuga oltreoceano nel 1950 di documenti rilasciati loro in Alto Adige dopo aver assunto una nuova identità. Perché il prototipo del "burocrate dello sterminio" …

Review Of Murat Birdal, The Political Economy Of Ottoman Public Debt: Insolvency And European Financial Control In The Late Nineteenth Century, Bedross Der Matossian

Department of History: Faculty Publications

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire along with Egypt and Iran emerged as debtor states. This was the direct result of the extensive social, political and economic transformations that were taking place in the region. Extensive reforms under the rubric of defensive modernization aimed at saving these countries from political decline. Economic reforms aimed at preventing the encroachment of European powers within the political economy of these countries. However, drastic changes in the capitalist world economy led to mounting pressure over these economies and transformed them from economically self-sufficient countries to peripheral debtor states. By …

Stalin’S Boots And The March Of History (Post-Communist Memories), Roland K. Végső

Department of English: Faculty Publications

I would like to propose here is precisely the invention of a relation to history and the public sphere of sociality that deconstructs the trauma/nostalgia opposition. The theoretical goal is to separate concrete narrative forms from actual political contents. It follows from the previous point that it might be possible to conceive of historical moments or concrete rhetorical situations in which we need to rely on nostalgic rather than traumatic narratives in order to imagine progressive political change. In these situations, the political task could be the development of a certain “critical nostalgia” that does not try to replace trauma …

Introduction To The Naked Communist: Cold War Modernism And The Politics Of Popular Culture, Roland K. Végső

Department of English: Faculty Publications

The first half of The Naked Communist is devoted to the theoretical and historical foundations of my reading of anti-Communist fictions. After the theoretical introduction, I examine anti-Communist aesthetic ideology by first analyzing its political and then its aesthetic components.

In the second half, I examine the way the culture of anti-Communism defined the “world” as the ultimate horizon of political imagination. Included is a brief overview of some of the most popular texts of the given genre.

Finally, I conclude these chapters with a reading of particular authors.