History Commons^™

Crania Japonica: Ethnographic Portraiture, Scientific Discourse, And The Fashioning Of Ainu/Japanese Colonial Identities, Jeffrey Braytenbah

Dissertations and Theses

Japan's colonial activities on the island of Hokkaido were instrumental to the creation of modern Japanese national identity. Within this construction, the indigenous Ainu people came to be seen in dialectical opposition to the 'modern' and 'civilized' identity that Japanese colonial actors fashioned for themselves. This process was articulated through travel literature, ethnographic portraiture, and discourse in scientific racism which racialized perceived divisions between the Ainu and Japanese and contributed to the unmaking of the Ainu homeland: Ainu Mosir. The resulting narrative was used to legitimize Japanese imperialism, transforming the Empire of Japan into the only non-Western member state …

Evangelizing Neoliberalism Through Megachurches In Latin America And The United States, William O. Collazo

Dissertations and Theses

The most prominent and influential feature of worldwide Evangelicalism, is the megachurch. In Latin America megachurches have proliferated and grown in political influence when they first came into contact with neoliberalism during Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile. As Latin America's poor first migrated out of rural areas into Latin American cities, then north, to the United States, they have brought with them their religion. Increasingly, this religion is Protestant, evangelical, and for many, it is Pentecostalism. Misunderstood by the early literature on Pentecostalism, is the strain of neoliberalism that has become infused in the religion's most powerful institution - the megachurch. …

Settler Visions Of Health: Health Care Provision In The Central African Federation, 1953-1963, Catherine Janet Valentine

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines healthcare provision in the Central African Federation, the late colonial union between the British colonies of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland (the later independent nations of Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi respectively). Unusually in federal formations, healthcare delivery in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland became a federal function. "Settler Visions of Health" seeks to explain how the white settler elite reconciled the language of development and multiracial partnership with the underlying values of a settler society. Throughout its short existence, the Federal Health Service maintained a celebratory narrative of success designed to legitimize and justify both …

Visualizing Complexity : A Spatial Analysis Of Decorative Geometric Pattern In The Islamic World, 900-1400 Ad, Tracy Elizabeth Harrison

Dissertations and Theses

This study explores how the use of complex decorative geometric patterns in Islamic architecture spatially relates to advances in the fields of science and philosophy in the Islamic world between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. This project examines hypotheses developed by vario~s scholars on the forces that shaped the use of these patterns (known as the geometric mode) in Islamic architecture. The prevailing assumption that advances in mathematics contributed to the use of the geometric mode is used as a starting point for subsequent analysis.

For this study, two spatial databases were created. One contains over two hundred and twenty …

A Study Of Two Attempts By President Plutarco ElíAs Calles To Establish A National Church In Mexico, Roger David Gouran

Dissertations and Theses

In the one-hundred years between 1810 and 1926 there were many civil wars in Mexico. The last of these wars. La Cristiada, was not fought, as were the previous civil wars, by groups seeking political control of Mexico. Rather, the genesis of this war was a question of who would control the Church in Mexico. The war began when President Plutarco Elias Calles attempted to enforce rigorously certain articles of the Constitution of 1917 as well as two laws which he promulgated. If Calles had succeeded, he would, in fact, have created a church in Mexico controlled by the federal …

Egypt And The Soviet Union, 1953-1970, John W. Copp

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze in detail the many aspects of the Soviet-Egyptian friendship as it developed from 1953 to 1970. The relationship between the two is extremely important because it provides insight into the roles of both Egypt and the Soviet Union in both the history of the Middle East and in world politics. The period from 1953 to 1970 is key in understanding the relationship between the two states because it is the period of the genesis of the relationship and a period in which both nations went through marked changes in both …

The Political Unification Of The Israeli Army, Michael Uhry Newman

Dissertations and Theses

The essay charts forty years of Zionist history to illuminate the remarkable evolution of Israel's unified, apolitical army and Israel's "democratic civil-military tradition," forged in the fires of opposing military styles, ideological rivalry, competing underground forces, war and civil war.

Fort Ross, Russian Colony In California, 1811-1841, Kathryn E. Mitchell

Dissertations and Theses

The essential objective of this study was to fill a bibliographic void of secondary source material concerning Russian California. This was accomplished by combining available translations and more specific studies on the subject into one extensive work. Introductory chapters provide: (1) a brief statement regarding Russia's massive eastward expansion through Siberia, to Kamchatka and Alaska; (2) an examination of the nature of the Russian-American Company; and (3) a detailed look at the programs instituted by the Company to provision Alaska and Kamchatka. The establishment of Fort Ross in 1811 is viewed as one of those programs. The settlement's primary function …

Succession To The Caliphate In Early Islam, Faisal H. Al-Kathiri

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis will examine the succession to the Islamic Caliphate as it existed during the time of the orthodox Caliphs (632-661).

The Minorities Of Czechoslovakia And Poland : Of Treaties And Human Nature, Bryant L. Larson

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores briefly two experimental cases, Czechoslovakia and Poland, where between 1919 and 1938, efforts were made to solve the “minority problem." This thesis consists of five basic parts: Chapter I, an introduction that defines or describes such concepts as nationalism, nation, state, and minority; Chapter II that succinctly presents backgrounds and problems of minorities in Czechoslovakia (Germans, Magyars, Ruthenians, and Jews), and Poland (Germans, Jews and Ukrainians); Chapter III that analyzes the provisions of the Minority Treaties prepared by the principal Allied Powers at the end of World War I to protect minority rights within Czechoslovakia and Poland; …

In Their Hearts Forever : The Dynamics Of Stalinism, James Seymour Wilson

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis is a general examination of the Soviet and East European crisis which followed the death of Joseph Stalin in March, 1953. Stalin's character, position, and power were such that the methods he employed in the government of the vast multi-national and multi-state empire bequeathed to his successors could not be made to function in his absence without reform and redefinition. The post-Stalin leadership realized that in order to consolidate its position at the head of the empire a careful program of "de-Stalinization" was mandatory. The prosecution of that program from the announcement of collective leadership in April, 1953, …