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Articles 1 - 14 of 14

Full-Text Articles in History

When Curiosity Kills More Than The Cat: The Perils Of Unchecked Scientific Inquiry, Jamie Shannon Dec 2010

When Curiosity Kills More Than The Cat: The Perils Of Unchecked Scientific Inquiry, Jamie Shannon

Pomona Senior Theses

This work analyzes the ecological, physical, emotional and health impacts of the US nuclear testing done in the Marshall Islands in the mid-20th century.


Conspicuous Publicity: How The White House And The Army Used The Medal Of Honor In The Korean War, David Glenn Williams Dec 2010

Conspicuous Publicity: How The White House And The Army Used The Medal Of Honor In The Korean War, David Glenn Williams

Masters Theses

During the Korean War the White House and the Army publicized the Medal of Honor to achieve three outcomes. First, they hoped it would have a positive influence on public opinion. Truman committed to limited goals at the start of the war and chose not to create an official propaganda agency, which led to partisan criticism and realistic reporting. Medal of Honor publicity celebrated individual actions removed from their wider context in a familiar, heroic mold to alter memory of the past. Second, the Army publicized the Medal of Honor internally to inspire and reinforce desired soldier behavior. Early reports …


Lest We Forget: The Library Of Congress's Veterans History Project And "Radical Trust", Christopher Michael Jannings Dec 2010

Lest We Forget: The Library Of Congress's Veterans History Project And "Radical Trust", Christopher Michael Jannings

Dissertations

This dissertation examines the Veterans History Project (VHP), an official U.S. government project created under a bill signed into law by President William J. Clinton on October 27, 2000 to document the experiences of American veterans and their supporters in time of war. It explores the intersections between, cultural, social, public, and military history and addresses the following questions: Who created the VHP, what were the motivations, and what resources did Congress allocate the Library of Congress, the federal agency selected to fulfill the mandate? Who was charged with implementing the VHP, why, and what resources did they employ? In …


Closing The Greenland-Iceland Atlantic Air-Gap: 1939 To 1943, James F. Boland Oct 2010

Closing The Greenland-Iceland Atlantic Air-Gap: 1939 To 1943, James F. Boland

History Theses & Dissertations

The Battle of the Atlantic during World War II centered on the submarine guerre de course of the German Kriegsmarine, aimed at severing the maritime bridge between Great Britain and North America. From 1939 until mid-1943 all of the belligerents involved struggled to balance the scarce resources they could marshal for the fight. For the Allies the limited number and quality of escort ships and patrol aircraft they could muster reflected this scarcity. During the summer of 1943 the Allies achieved their turning point in the battle when a complex mix of factors coalesced. Prominent among those factors was …


Shattered Communities: Soldiers, Rabbis, And The Ostjuden Under German Occupation: 1915-1918, Tracey Hayes Norrell Aug 2010

Shattered Communities: Soldiers, Rabbis, And The Ostjuden Under German Occupation: 1915-1918, Tracey Hayes Norrell

Doctoral Dissertations

“Shattered Communities: Soldiers, Rabbis, and the Ostjuden during Occupation: 1915-1918" addresses the interethnic experience in Poland during the German occupation of 1915-1918. This dissertation demonstrates that the German design for 'modernization' of the East began with the First World War, which envisioned the Jews as a critically vital component, rather than an obstacle to their success. The German military made its connection to the peoples in the East via its own army rabbis and Jewish administrators. This work examines the role of the German Army rabbis, in 1915, in establishing a Jewish press and Jewish schools, along with Jewish relief …


Modernity, Capitalism, And War: Toward A Sociology Of War In The Nineteenth Century, 1815-1914, Eric Royal Lybeck Aug 2010

Modernity, Capitalism, And War: Toward A Sociology Of War In The Nineteenth Century, 1815-1914, Eric Royal Lybeck

Masters Theses

The academic discipline of Sociology has rarely broached the subject of war and its recursive relationship with society. This paper addresses three major approaches in several disciplines that can be deemed ‘economically deterministic’: Marxist, Liberal, and Realist. These approaches can be useful for certain questions, but also leave out, or cloud other non-economic variables in understanding war – notably culture and military variables themselves. By using Karl Polanyi’s thesis regarding the “Myth of the Hundred Years’ Peace” (1815-1914) as a foil, the historical case of war in the nineteenth century is used to highlight the nature of war in European …


Behind The Shield-Wall: The Experience Of Combat In Late Anglo-Saxon England, Jordan Poss Aug 2010

Behind The Shield-Wall: The Experience Of Combat In Late Anglo-Saxon England, Jordan Poss

All Theses

Most studies of the Anglo-Saxon military examine its structural ties to economic and social structures, rarely investigating Anglo-Saxon battle itself. This paper asks the question 'What was it like to have been in battle with the Anglo-Saxon army?' After introducing the topic in a study of the 991 Battle of Maldon and describing the development of the Anglo-Saxon military system between the fifth and eleventh centuries, this paper relies on case studies of the most thoroughly-documented Anglo-Saxon battles, those of 1066--Fulford Gate, Stamford Bridge, and Hastings--to reconstruct the conditions of Anglo-Saxon combat and their effects on the men who fought …


Rhode Island's Wars: Imperial Conflicts And Provincial Self-Interests In The Ocean Colony, 1739–48, Greg Rogers Jun 2010

Rhode Island's Wars: Imperial Conflicts And Provincial Self-Interests In The Ocean Colony, 1739–48, Greg Rogers

Master's Theses

Whether in terms of political and military threats or economic and demographic growth, this thesis argues that Rhode Island’s involvement in this period of imperial warfare was characterized by self-interest on a variety of levels. The government’s military plans, the expansion of provincial power, attempts to raise expeditionary forces, the use of privateers, and the indirect participation of non-combatants all depict a colonial society very interested in its own local political and economic interests. Although literally “provincial,” these interests exhibit the Atlantic and global networks that the smallest of the New England colonies was situated in. These two different sets …


Failure, Success And Lessons Learned: The Legacy Of The Algerian War And Its Influence On Counterinsurgency Doctrine, Zack Rish May 2010

Failure, Success And Lessons Learned: The Legacy Of The Algerian War And Its Influence On Counterinsurgency Doctrine, Zack Rish

All Theses

The 2003 American invasion of Iraq resulted in a violent insurgency that American forces were initially unable to counter. The United States military was shocked by its failure and was forced to consider what it had done wrong. Once the U.S. military looked into its past it was forced to admit it had wrongly ignored counterinsurgency. To correct this, it assigned many of its officers, along with other military experts, to create a new, updated doctrine that incorporated the lessons of Iraq and other recent, relevant historical precedent.
Perhaps surprisingly to some, the United States military interpreted that the Algerian …


Atomic Governance: Militarism, Secrecy, And Science In Post-War America, 1945-1958, Mary D. Wammack May 2010

Atomic Governance: Militarism, Secrecy, And Science In Post-War America, 1945-1958, Mary D. Wammack

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This history of America's post-World War II atomic program examines the institutional impulses that drove its evolution from 1945 through the 1958 moratorium on atmospheric weapons testing. Based on archival research and methodologies borrowed from sociologists and legal theorists, it focuses on the motivations of and decisions made by military officers, program managers and affiliates in the private sector, their relationships, and the alliances they formed with congressmen. This analysis identifies a two-stage process of self-interested decision-making through which the armed forces, seeking to mitigate postwar loss of funding and influence, gained de facto control of the atomic program that …


Strategic Air Warfare And Nuclear Strategy: The Formulation Of Military Policy In The Truman Administration, 1945-1950, Patrick William Steele Apr 2010

Strategic Air Warfare And Nuclear Strategy: The Formulation Of Military Policy In The Truman Administration, 1945-1950, Patrick William Steele

Dissertations (1934 -)

This work analyzes the military decision making within the Truman administration that culminated in the purchases of aircraft and the establishment of a virtual nuclear only strategy. When Harry S. Truman became President in April 1945, the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) was in the formative stage of a firebombing campaign that attempted to burn the Japanese out of the war by targeting the civilian population. Four months later, the use of nuclear bombs ushered in the atomic age and completely altered the military and political decision-making processes within the administration. Despite evidence to the contrary about the efficacy …


The Experience Of The 756th Tank Battalion In World War Two: A Microcosm, Scott Millenbach Feb 2010

The Experience Of The 756th Tank Battalion In World War Two: A Microcosm, Scott Millenbach

Senior Theses

December 7, 1941, "a day which will live in infamy," was the moment that the United States was plunged into the largest conflict that the world had ever seen. The sovereignty of the United States was being threatened at two ends of the globe by tyrannical leaders on the continent of Europe and the islands of the Pacific. In the years to come, the U.S. would have to fight to stop the spread of Emperor Hirohito's army in the Pacific and Hitler's Nazi Wermacht in Europe. It would take all the resources our mighty country could muster and the fighting …


The Rhetoric Of Destruction: Racial Identity And Noncombatant Immunity In The Civil War Era, James M. Bartek Jan 2010

The Rhetoric Of Destruction: Racial Identity And Noncombatant Immunity In The Civil War Era, James M. Bartek

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This study explores how Americans chose to conduct war in the mid-nineteenth century and the relationship between race and the onset of “total war” policies. It is my argument that enlisted soldiers in the Civil War era selectively waged total war using race and cultural standards as determining factors. A comparative analysis of the treatment of noncombatants throughout the United States between 1861 and 1865 demonstrates that nonwhites invariably suffered greater depredations at the hands of military forces than did whites. Five types of encounters are examined: 1) the treatment of white noncombatants by regular Union and Confederate forces; 2) …


A History Of El Paso's Company E In World War Ii, Jorge Rodriguez Jan 2010

A History Of El Paso's Company E In World War Ii, Jorge Rodriguez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

For the most part, Hispanics in the U.S. military were not segregated into separate units, but there was, at least, one known exception. It is this particular story of a National Guard unit from El Paso, Texas designated as Company E that has received minimal attention by historians. This unit was unlike any other unit of the National Guard in that it consisted only of Mexican-Americans.