Diplomatic History Commons^™

Empire Of The Young: Missionary Children In Hawai'i And The Birth Of U.S. Colonialism In The Pacific, 1820–1898, Joy Schulz

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Hawaiian by birth, white by race, and American by parental and educational design, the children of nineteenth-century American missionaries in Hawai‘i occupied an ambiguous place in Hawaiian culture.  More tenuous was the relationship between these children and the United States where many attended college before returning to the Hawaiian Islands.  The supposed acculturation of white missionary children in Hawai‘i to American cultural, political and religious institutions was never complete, nor was their membership in Hawaiian society uncontested.  The tenuous roles these children played in both societies influenced the trajectories of each nation in surprising ways.  Similarly, the children’s cultural experiences …

The Economics Of The Atomic Bomb: Cost And Utilization, Jonathan M. Davis Mr.

Senior Honors Theses

Few moments in human history can be compared to the culmination of events that brought the atomic bomb into creation.  It is incredible to contemplate that while a nation was fighting a two front war that spanned from Europe into the Pacific, that the United States was able to utilize the time, energy, brains, materials, manpower, and capital to complete a project in four years. That under any other circumstances would have taken greater than half a century to complete.

First, this thesis will discuss breakthroughs in research that led scientists to believe that the atomic weapons could be built, …

Walking The Tightrope: The United States’ Policy In Vietnam, 1952-1954, Erin Flynn

Annual Celebration of Student Scholarship and Creativity

This thesis demonstrates how the Truman and Eisenhower administrations sought to avoid direct intervention in Indochina and halt the spread of communism at the same time. This purpose is achieved through careful analysis of primary and secondary sources, with a particular focus on the primary documentation found in Foreign Relations of the United States: 1952-1954. Through examination of these day-by-day recordings and memos, the futility of pursuing the two conflicting aims becomes clear.

Uncoiling The Modern Sino-American Relationship, Amanda Mcatee

Psi Sigma Siren

For this particular paper I seek to qualify the true nature of the Sino-American relationship as it has developed over the last quarter of the twentieth century. To more fully appreciate the complex relationship that evolved between such seemingly antithetical nations, I will critically review both James Mann‘s About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China, From Nixon to Clinton and Margaret MacMillan‘s Nixon and Mao: The Week that Changed the World. This paper will specifically focus on evaluating the similarities and inconsistencies between Mann‘s and MacMillan‘s theses, elucidate the structural differences between each author‘s arguments, and …

Review Of A Question Of Command: Counterinsurgency From The Civil War To Iraq, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Articles and Research

A review of A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq, by Mark Moyar.

The Perseverance Of Neoliberalism: Why Obama Has Not Shifted Trade Policy In Response To The Great Recession, Brian Pratt

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis examines Obama’s reasons for not shifting trade during the recession. The author goes into depth about how business groups influence Obama and his decisions on trade policies. Obama’s and Clinton’s administrations and their policies, through documents, speeches, and other sources, are also compared due to the fact that Clinton was the last Democratic president. Scholarly literature is also examined in regards to both Clinton’s and Obama’s presidency.

The Avenger - January-March 2011, Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum

The Avenger

No abstract provided.

The Village As Cold War Site: Experts, Development, And The History Of Rural Reconstruction, Nicole Sackley

History Faculty Publications

This article examines ‘the village’ as a category of development knowledge used by policymakers and experts to remake the ‘Third World’ during the Cold War. The idea of the village as a universal category of underdevelopment, capable of being remade by expert-led social reform, structured efforts to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of people from Asia to Latin America and Africa. Rooted in a transnational interwar movement for rural reconstruction, village projects were transformed in the 1950s and 1960s by a scientization of development that narrowed the range of experts in the field and by Cold War politics that increasingly …

Peace Corps At 50: Bringing The World Back Home, Nicole Sackley

History Faculty Publications

Both the critics and defenders of the Peace Corps judge the organization on its ability to change other nations' views of the United States, either by offering technical assistance or by making friends for the United States in the world. What is missing from these debates is a frank acknowledgment that the Peace Corps teaches Americans as much as it serves the world. The organization's greatest value may be in "bringing the world back home" through its more than 200,000 former volunteers.

Narratives Of Development: Models, Spectacles, And Calculability In Nick Cullather's The Hungry World, Nicole Sackley

History Faculty Publications

To describe The Hungry World: America's Cold War Battle Against Poverty in Asia as a history of the green revolution does not begin to convey the ambition and rewards of Nick Cullather's new book. In less than three hundred pages, Hungry World offers a detailed diplomatic, intellectual, and cultural history that spans more than a century and three continents. Cullather deepens and revises our understanding of the "green revolution" as a history of the Rockefeller Foundation and its "transfer" of agricultural technology from Mexico to Asia, in part by showing how the green revolution's intellectual and political construction involved a …

Richard Edgar Pipes, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Richard Pipes is a historian who specializes in Soviet and Russian history. He also served on the National Security Council under President Ronald Reagan.

The Regeneration Of Hellas: Influences On The Greek War For Independence 1821-1832, Stefanie Chan

CMC Senior Theses

The paper attempts to analyze the greater influences of the Greek War for Independence through an assessment of the greater forces of the. Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Great Power politics

British Embassy Reports On The Greek Uprising In 1821-1822: War Of Independence Or War Of Religion?, Theophilus C. Prousis

History Faculty Research and Scholarship

In a dispatch of 10 April 1821 to Foreign Secretary Castlereagh, Britain’s ambassador to the Sublime Porte (Lord Strangford) evoked the prevalence of religious mentalities and religiously induced reprisals in the initial phase of the Greek War of Independence. The sultan’s “government perseveres in its endeavours to strike terror into the minds of its Greek subjects; and it seems that these efforts have been very successful. The commerce of the Greeks has been altogether suspended – their houses have been shut up – and an armed and licentious population, wandering through the streets of this capital and its suburbs, daily …

The Many Shades Of Praise: Politics And Panegyrics In Fifteenth-Century Florentine Diplomacy, Brian Maxson

ETSU Faculty Works

Fifteenth-century diplomatic protocol required the city of Florence to send diplomats to congratulate both new and militarily victorious rulers. Diplomats on such missions poured praise on their triumphant allies and new rulers at friendly locations. However, political realities also meant that these diplomats would sometimes have to praise rulers whose accession or victory opposed Florentine interests. Moreover, different allies and enemies required different levels of praise. Jealous rulers compared the gifts, status, and oratory that they received from Florence to the Florentine entourages sent to their neighbors. Sending diplomats with too little or too much social status and eloquence could …

David P. Forsythe And Charles J. Mach On Empire Of Humanity: A History Of Humanitarianism. By Michael Barnett. Ithaca, Ny: Cornell University Press, 2011. 312pp., David P. Forsythe, Charles J. Mach

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism. By Michael Barnett. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011. 312pp.

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.

Kings And Tyrants: Leonardo Bruni's Translation Of Xenophon's "Hiero", Brian Maxson

ETSU Faculty Works

Leonardo Bruni published one of his most widely copied translations, Xenophon's pro-monarchical Hiero, shortly before he penned his more famous original works, his Dialogues and Panegyric to the City of Florence. Scholars have traditionally focused on the political ideas present in these original treatises; yet, despite the centrality of political ideas to the Hiero, its temporal proximity to these works, and its enormous popularity (the work exists in 200 fifteenth-century manuscripts), scholars have neglected to offer a full assessment of Bruni's translation in the context of these works. Bruni's translation of Xenophon's Hiero fit into a debate …

Communication And Community : Multiplex Networks In The 18th Century Sephardi Diaspora, Evelyne Oliel Grausz

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In many aspects, the Sephardi diaspora functioned as a combination of overlapping circulations and networks, its many levels of communication and interaction involving family ties, economic partnerships, and official intercommunal links. Whereas the question of intercommunal networks has recently attracted some topical studies, little attention has been paid to the articulation between these various levels of circulation and interaction. I propose to explore this idea of a multiplex diaspora through a selection of documents emanating from the Amsterdam and London Sephardic community, essentially letters, addressed to Bordeaux, Safed, Surinam and Ferrara : these documents describe several paradigmatic situations of interaction …

Rebirth Of A Strategic Continent?: Problematizing Africa As A Geostrategic Zone, Abou B. Bamba

History Faculty Publications

At a time when the U.S. Department of Defense is putting the finishing touches to the establishment of a military command for Africa (known as AFRICOM) and the People’s Republic of China’s influence on the continent seems to be on the rise, a detour through the history of America’s past geographical imaginations of Africa appears as a necessity. This is especially crucial since the current constructions of the African continent as a strategic place in both policy and military circles seems to echo the geodiscursive representations of Africa during the Second World War. In fact, it was in the early …

A Not-Too-Distant Mirror: The Talcott Commission (1840-43) And The Meaning Of The Border, Andrew C. Holman

Bridgewater Review

“Who we are” has always been defined in part by “who we’re not,” and who we’re not is often symbolized by our borders. America’s edges, its international borders, have become a critical focus of identity politics and border security - keeping out Mexican migrants, Canadian drug smugglers and other fiends - grist for the Sunday morning news show mills. However, today’s Fortress America is hardly new; students who examine America’s mid-nineteenth-century rush to solidify its national borders would find that their ancestors made a similar equation. The ways they defined their borders reflected the ways they defined themselves. In 1840 …