History Commons^™

The War That Wasn't: Religious Conflict And Compromise In The Common Schools Of New York, 1865-1900 (Book Review), R. Bryan Bademan

History Faculty Publications

Book review by R. Bryan Bademan.

Justice, Benjamin. The War That Wasn't: Religious Conflict and Compromise in the Common Schools of New York, 1865-1900. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. ISBN 9780791462119; 9780791484463

Generations Later: Has Once-Remote Promise Of Freedom Been Fulfilled?, Edward L. Ayers

History Faculty Publications

Emancipation began with a flickering promise, burned intensely for a few years during Reconstruction, and then smoldered for a century. Equality and justice have come into view for most African-Americans only in the past two generations. For many descendants of slavery, those essential rights of a free people are still hard to see.

The Seven Years' War In New York State: Introduction, Timothy J. Shannon

History Faculty Publications

Ask the average person on the street about the Seven Years' War and you are likely to get a blank stare. Try again, only this time call the conflict "The French and Indian War" and you might get a faint smile of recognition. Take a different approach: ask random strangers their opinion about The Last of the Mohicans. Many will tell you they loved it, although they will more likely be thinking about Daniel Day-Lewis than James Fenimore Cooper.

Such has been the fate of one of the most important events in early history. In 2004, the 250th anniversary of …

Moral Reconstruction: Christian Lobbyists And The Federal Legislation Of Morality, 1865-1920 (Book Review), R. Bryan Bademan

History Faculty Publications

Book review by R. Bryan Bademan.

Foster, Gaines M. Moral Reconstruction: Christian Lobbyists and the Federal Legislation of Morality, 1865-1920. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2002. ISBN 9780807826973 (hardcover); 9780807853665 (pbk.)

Queequeg's Tomahawk: A Cultural Biography, 1750-1900, Timothy J. Shannon

History Faculty Publications

Since the colonial era, the tomahawk has served as a symbol of Indian savagery in American arts and literature. The pipe tomahawk, however, tells a different story. From its backcountry origins as a trade good to its customization as a diplomatic device, this object facilitated European-Indian exchange, giving tangible form to spoken metaphors for war, peace, and alliance. The production, distribution, and use of the pipe tomahawk also illustrated contrasting Indian and European notions of value and utility in material objects, exposing the limits of such goods in promoting cross-cultural mediation and understanding.

The Chautauqua Moment: Protestants, Progressives, And The Culture Of Modern Liberalism (Book Review), R. Bryan Bademan

History Faculty Publications

Book review by R. Bryan Bademan.

Rieser, Andrew C. The Chautauqua Moment: Protestants, Progressives, and the Culture of Modern Lilberalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. ISBN 9780231126427

(Review) Finding The Middle Way: The Utraquists' Liberal Challenge To Rome And Luther, Marc R. Forster

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

(Review) The Myth Of Nations: The Medieval Origins Of Europe, Frederick S. Paxton

History Faculty Publications

Reviews Patrick J. Geary's, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe. First paperback ed. Princeton N.J., and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003. Pp. xi, 199. $16.95.

Thinking About Elites In The Early Republic, Andrew M. Schocket

History Faculty Publications

This essay is a conceptual exploration designed not only to provoke further consideration and discussion of how we might better analyze elites, but also, by extension, to offer a framework for investigating class and class differences in the early years of America’s nationhood.

The Faux Pas Of A Vert Galant: The Historiography Of Henry Iv's Military Leadership, Annette Finley-Croswhite

History Faculty Publications

Even though many modern historians agree that Henry IV was less than a brilliant military commander, a small but growing body of revisionist historians believe that his reputation deserves to be reassessed. While acknowledging his military innovations and battlefield successes, his critics see him primarily as an opportunist with a reckless streak who failed time and again to take full advantage of his victories. The revisionist school, however, believes that these interpretations are based on an inaccurate assessment of early modern warfare and its unique political, religious, and social components. Henry's modern defenders further note that his reputation has suffered …

What Is Your Anthropology? What Are Your Ethics?, Robert H. Holden

History Faculty Publications

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

We tend to think of the great ridge that rose up inside the historical profession some three decades ago, splitting historians into two camps, as some kind of epistemological event. Ancient disagreements about the nature (and existence ) of truth suddenly became more extreme and divisive. Now, the biggest flags wave over the "relativists" on one side, and the "truth seekers" on the other. Smaller banners ("moderate historicists," "construetivists ," "positivists," etc.) fly here and there along the slopes of lower-lying ranges on each side of the …

Stops And Starts: Ideology, Commercialism And The Fall Of American Women’S Hockey In The 1920s, Andrew C. Holman

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Advent Of Neo-Revisionism?, Günter Bischof

History Faculty Publications

Five distinguished scholars offer separate commentaries on the article by Michael Cox and Caroline Kennedy-Pipe. All of the commentators reject the broad interpretation and many of the specific arguments put forth by Cox and Kennedy-Pipe. They point out several crucial issues that are omitted from the article and raise questions about the authors’ sources, use of evidence, and selective invocation of secondary literature. They regret that Cox and Kennedy-Pipe seem to dwell on a large number of the same matters that preoccupied radical revisionist historians in the 1960s. They argue that although Cox and Kennedy-Pipe offer a more sophisticated version …

Teaching In A Gendered World, Karen Sotiropoulos, Ian Christopher Fletcher

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Hillbilly In The American Imagination, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Stalin's Holy War: Religion, Nationalism, And Alliance Politics, 1941–1945 (Book Review), David Brandenberger

History Faculty Publications

The Kremlin tête-à-tête and the iconoclastic revival of the Russian Orthodox Church that followed have long intrigued those writing about ideological change in the USSR under Stalin. Many believe that the concessions to the church were an exigency of war designed to increase the party’s ability to rally support from among even the most reluctant members of Soviet society. Others consider the revival of the church to have been part of a more thoroughgoing Russiªcation of the USSR in the mid- to late 1930s that rehabilitated aspects of the Russian national past for mobilizational purposes well before 1941. In Stalin’s …

Grandfathers, Grandsons, Morality, And Radical Politics In Late Colonial Buganda, Carol Summers

History Faculty Publications

Late in 1948, one of the radical Luganda newspapers in Buganda printed Dionizio Sifirwakange's rhetorical and distinctly aggrieved questions: "Has it become a crime for schoolchildren to evince patriotic sentiments? Why does the Government prohibit the assembly of the Bataka at the houses of their 'grandfathers'?"¹

Sifirwakange was complaining about the repressive response of the Kingdom of Buganda and its ally, the Protectorate of Uganda, to a political and social movement whose most visible adherents were the patriotic schoolchildren, along with other youth and men of all ages, who assembled by the thousands at the homes of their grandfathers …

Stalin As Symbol: A Case Study Of The Cult Of Personality And Its Construction, David Brandenberger

History Faculty Publications

Although the cult of personality certainly owed something to Stalin’s affinity for self-aggrandisement, modern social science literature suggests that it was designed to perform an entirely different ideological function. Personality cults promoting charismatic leadership are typically found in developing societies where ruling cliques aspire to cultivate a sense of popular legitimacy.² Scholars since Max Weber have observed that charismatic leadership plays a particularly crucial role in societies that are either poorly integrated or lack regularised administrative institutions. In such situations, loyalty to an inspiring leader can induce even the most fragmented polities to acknowledge the authority of the central …

What Caused The Civil War?, Edward L. Ayers

History Faculty Publications

The challenge of explaining the Civil War has led historians to seek clarity in two ways of thought. One school, the fundamentalists, emphasizes the intrinsic, inevitable conflict between slavery and free labor. The other, the revisionists, emphasizes discrete events and political structures rather than slavery itself. Both sides see crucial parts of the problem, but it has proved difficult to reconcile the perspectives because they approach the Civil War with different assumptions about what drives history.

Automobiles And Auto Manufacturing, John Alfred Heitmann

History Faculty Publications

In several important respects the automobile and automobile manufacturing proved to be at the heart of North American life during the 1950s. The decade was one characterized as the age of tail fins and chrome, and the automobile was recognized as something far more than ordinary transportation.

Ford Thunderbird, John Alfred Heitmann

History Faculty Publications

Ford, with its introduction of the Thunderbird, became the first car manufacturer to create the market segment for personal luxury cars. The car became the trend-setting automobile of the 1950s and defined personal status during the decade of consumer excess.

Commmonplaces On Preaching Among Commonplaces For Preaching? The Topic Predicacio In Thomas Of Ireland's Manipulus Florum, Chris L. Nighman

History Faculty Publications

This article offers a new theory regarding Thomas of Ireland's intention in compiling the Manipulus florum. Focusing on several passages from Thomas's Preface to this influential florilegium, the author proposes that it was not intended as a resource for sermon composition, as previously thought, but rather as a collection of authoritative quotations to be used by university students for the purpose of self-formation. While the evidence for its reception as a preaching aid indicates the importance of the entire text of the Manipulus for scholars of late medieval and early modem sermons, it is argued that thefifty-ftve quotations …

Lost Shores, Forgotten Peoples: Spanish Explorations Of The South East Mayan Lowlands, Charlotte M. Gradie

History Faculty Publications

Reviews the book "Lost Shores, Forgotten Peoples: Spanish Explorations of the South East Mayan Lowlands," edited and translated by Lawrence H. Feldman.This book is a collection of Spanish documents in translation, mostly from the seventeenth century, regarding the Spanish conquest of the southeast Maya lowlands, and in particular the Manchu Chol people.

Modern German Universities And Their Historians Since The Fall Of The Wall, Charles E. Mcclelland

History Faculty Publications

A critical collective evaluation of recently-published works on German universities.