History Commons^™

Shang Yang And Skirmishes: Warfare And Philosophy In Warring States China, Levi Berg

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Ancient history is often complex. The 21st century is so far removed from the epoch that not only is understanding the sources a problem, but so is the quantity and quality of the sources themselves. However, what we have along with the archaeology is enough to determine at least some historicity of the epoch. Other questions are raised, however, when one starts to examine ancient history. For instance, what caused the philosophical upheaval during the political and social upheaval called the Warring States period in China? During this period in ancient China, when the states were in a struggle to …

Revolutionaries And Counterrevolutionaries: An Academic Poster Session, Bryson Doering, Carter Benton, Nicholas Stratton, Sophie Nagi

Scholar Week 2016 - present

This academic poster sessions contains work produced by students in the Fall 2023 course HIST 362 The Age of Revolutions to the Age of Extremes: Modern Europe. Exploring European Ideas, Culture, and Politics in the wake of the French Revolution, students were tasked with conducting original biographical research on a revolutionary individual and then, alongside their written papers, developing their research into an academic poster presentation. These academic posters convey the biography and revolutionary as well as counterrevolutionary character of pivotal European figures since 1789. As a result, they represent a concise academic presentation of key transformative individuals from Europe's …

Kankakee In Deindustrialization: An Oral History Approach, Rachel H. Shepard

ELAIA

The City of Kankakee was an industrialized city that prospered economically for decades. Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, economic trends shifted for Kankakee and the surrounding communities. The major factories, such as Roper Corporation and A.O. Smith, migrated their source of production from Kankakee to other regions of the United States and abroad during the 1970s and 1980s. As a result, the declining industrial economic activity led to changing community perceptions. Kankakee is an example of the “Rust Belt” region, a region in the Midwestern and Northeastern States of the United States where declining industrial activity occurred throughout the …

History Lessons From Esther: The Leopold Von Ranke Lecture Delivered At The Phi Alpha Theta Induction Ceremony, Kent R. Olney

Scholarship – Academic Affairs Office

The German historian, Leopold Von Ranke, noted the following: “Every epoch is immediate to God, and its value is not based on what emerges from it, but on its very existence.” My assignment was to respond to Von Ranke’s thoughts. I have done so by drawing on four observations made from the OT book of Esther. These observations pertain to truth, years, obscurity, and heroes; all of them matter to God and all of them should matter to the historian. In a sense, these four elements are the raw materials, or building blocks, of history in any generation. I conclude …

Kankakee County In Deindustrialization: An Oral History Approach, Rachel Shepard

Honors Program Projects

The City of Kankakee was an industrialized city which prospered economically for decades. Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, economic trends shifted for Kankakee and the surrounding communities. The major factories, such as Roper Corporation and A.O. Smith, migrated their source of production from Kankakee to other regions of the United States and abroad. As a result, the declining industrial economic activity led to changing community perceptions. Kankakee is an example of the “Rust Belt” region, a region in the Midwestern and Northeastern States of the United States where declining industrial activity occurred throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The paper …

Experiencing History: A Roundtable Discussion Of Architecture, Theatre, And Culture Of England, Elyse Lamszus, Andrew Hoag, Riley Basick, Katherine Bosma, Autumn Bruens, Alaina Durr, Cynthia Morales, Madelynn Norton, Laura Rankin, Benjamin Ridler, Remington Ross, Lia Shomaly, Anna Shoup, Kaitlyn Tibbetts, Becca Witvoet, Emily Yerge

Scholar Week 2016 - present

This presentation features a roundtable discussion among students who traveled to England during Spring Break, March 5-11, 2022. This presentation seeks to share primary and secondary research about England’s architecture and theatre, as well as additional insights about England’s culture and history gained through first-hand experiences of traveling within the city of London and to Stonehenge and Bath.

Kankakee In Deindustrialization: An Oral History Approach, Rachel Shepard

Scholar Week 2016 - present

The City of Kankakee was an industrialized city which prospered economically for decades. Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, economic trends shifted for Kankakee and the surrounding communities. The major factories, such as Roper Corporation and A.O. Smith, migrated their source of production from Kankakee to other regions of the United States and abroad during the 1970s and 1980s. As a result, the declining industrial economic activity led to changing community perceptions. Kankakee is an example of the “Rust Belt” region, a region in the Midwestern and Northeastern States of the United States where declining industrial activity occurred throughout the …

Patrick Pearse: Nationalist Traditionalist Revolutionary And The Murder Machine, Levi Berg

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Patrick Pearse was a major figure in the struggle for Irish independence from the United Kingdom. As a gifted scholar and teacher, he outlined his views for Irish education in an essay entitled "The Murder Machine". The presented research argues that Pearse had both nationalist revolutionary ideas and traditionalist ideas, bringing them together in a paradoxical vision for the future of Ireland and its children, and that this vision is what ultimately led to the Easter Rising of 1916.

Why Social Studies Matters: Historical Thinking In The Classroom & Beyond, Margaret Houts, Sabrina Bogart

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Presentation Location: Warming House, Olivet Nazarene University

Abstract

Social studies education is vital to helping students develop critical thinking skills that they will use both in and out of the classroom. As the world becomes increasingly complex and diverse, students must be given the tools they need to interpret and engage with it. The skills that students develop in the social studies classroom prepare them to be critical thinkers and engaged citizens in the 21st century. This presentation will summarize and interpret the body of research pertaining to teaching historical thinking skills. The presenters will share how they have …

Roman Britain And Anglo-Saxon Britain: Cultural Difference, Levi Michael Berg

Scholar Week 2016 - present

A role of historians is to distinguish between cultural groups. They must investigate the practices and artifacts in order to create a model. This model should accurately explain events such as celebrations, war, or in the case of Britain, cultural intertwining and invasion. Britain is an interesting case to study in the Middle Ages because of the amount of intermixing that takes place. Within the time period of a few hundred years, Britain had seen multiple different distinct people groups inhabit the island. This paper will focus on the major cultural differences of the two earliest invasions, the Romans and …

Roman Britain And Anglo-Saxon Britain: Cultural Differences, Levi Michael Berg

Undergraduate Student Scholarship – History

A role of historians is to distinguish between cultural groups. They must investigate the practices and artifacts in order to create a model. This model should accurately explain events such as celebrations, war, or in the case of Britain, cultural intertwining and invasion. Britain is an interesting case to study in the Middle Ages because of the amount of intermixing that takes place. Within the time period of a few hundred years, Britain had seen multiple different distinct people groups inhabit the island. This paper will focus on the major cultural differences of the two earliest invasions, the Romans and …

Amici’S Double Star Observations, Stephen Case

Faculty Scholarship – Geology

Review of the book:

Giovanni Battista Amici, Il catalogo delle stelle doppie. Edited by Alberto Meschiari (Edizioni Tassinari, Florence, 2020). Pp. 259. 75 €. ISBN 9791280141033.

The Light Of The Middle Ages, David Duwal

Undergraduate Student Scholarship – History

This essay presents a description of three medieval candlesticks as well as an argument about their purposes other than for holding candles. It explores the symbolic and religious nature of medieval design, especially in regard to the natural and bestial. Accompanying is a digital exhibition of the three candlesticks that includes close-up images of the details discussed in the essay.

A Short History Of The Kankakee River, James V. Johnson

Kankakee River Watershed Conference

Other title: Our Glorious Past

The Changing Nature Of Catastrophe: A History Of Semantic Shift, Justine Von Arb

Honors Program Projects

Catastrophe, and the reporting of catastrophe, is prevalent in the present age, and catastrophic events are a part of the cultural memory. For America, events such as 9/11, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Hurricane Katrina, and the Challenger explosion, along with many other events, have filled newspapers and books, inspired documentaries and memorials, and, in many ways, reshaped the country. This paper investigated the changing nature of the word "catastrophe" and discovered the context of and the reasons for the shift in its meaning in 1748, as recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary. The Greek roots of the word, …

A Blackberry Day, Jack Wayne Furbee

Faculty Emeriti Scholarship

Blackberries grew thick and juicy in Wetzel County, West Virginia back in the 1930's.

Battle Of The Bugs, Jack Wayne Furbee

Faculty Emeriti Scholarship

Exterminating bugs in rural West Virginia; a boy's life.

Growing Up Appalachian: In The Van Camp Community Of Wetzel County, West Virginia, Jack Wayne Furbee

Faculty Emeriti Books

Three miles south from the lovely Wetzel County Courthouse on Routes 2 and 180 is an almost forgotten community called Van Camp. In the nineteenth century, it flourished with a post office, store, church with cemetery, and school. My good fortune was to be born on the Bernan Hill amid the Van Camp lure so often expressed by my parents and grandparents. The hills of Van Camp were high and steep; the valleys were peaceful and inviting. It covered an area south from Cider Run along Point Pleasant Creek and Old Route 18 into Tyler County and west along Paden …

Christmas Eve In The Manger Of The Little Barn, Jack Wayne Furbee

Faculty Emeriti Scholarship

The author as a little boy beds down with the animals in the barn in solidarity with the Christ child.

The Intellectual Fallout From World War I, William Dean

Faculty Scholarship – History

Many books link World War II to postmodernism, but few link World War I in the same way. The author here explores the intellectual fallout from World War I as the context of the roots of post-modernism. His limited purpose in this paper is to explore one of many possible links between the unanticipated carnage of World War I, through existentialism, to the attack on meaning in history posed by postmodernism. The postmodern drive towards individual isolation and autonomy has a corrosive political impact on our world, as it does on individual well being.

One of the internal inconsistencies that …

The Measure Of Wisdom: The Soul, Society And Justice, Travis A. Powers

M.A. in Philosophy of History Theses

Following the insights of Eric Voegelin, this paper attempts to articulate a measuring tool by which Western civilization could test its health. The paper is centered on Plato’s existential principle, tracing its formulation and development through Greek tragedy and Socratic thought, first. The existential principle in its basic formulation is that a societal order reflects the type of people by whom it is composed; stated more tersely, the spirit of the people weave together the spirit of the society. An understanding of the existential principle is given by the example of when Socrates and Plato used the authority of the …

The Virtuous State: Polybius, Machiavelli, And The Idea Of Roman Virtue, Geoffrey Graham

M.A. in Philosophy of History Theses

I will consider the writings of Polybius of Megalopolis (c. 200 BC – c. 118 BC) and those of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) on the subject of Roman virtue, discussing the concept of virtue, highlighting the conduct of specific Roman citizens, as well as analyzing the Roman constitution and the wider culture from which it arose. Examining the life and historical milieu of Polybius, I'll outline his major contributions to history, and end with a discussion of his conception of virtue in the Republican Roman context. Secondly, after a brief biographical sketch of Machiavelli and listing his significant works, …

Resourcing The Postmodern Pastor: An Examination Of Young Pastors’ Attitudes And The Implications For Denominational Publishers, Bonnie J. Perry

Ed.D. Dissertations

This study explored the influence of postmodernity on the changing attitudes of young pastors regarding spirituality and discipleship in their adult congregants. The purpose of this study was to educate and equip Christian publishers to resource young pastors who are ministering in a postmodern culture. The study focused on Church of the Nazarene pastors 35 years old or younger in the calendar year 2012, exploring their attitudes toward Christian faith, spirituality, and discipleship. At certain junctures in the study, the young pastors’ attitudes were compared to those of pastors who were 36 years or older in order to determine what …

Wood Gathering Day, Jack Wayne Furbee

Faculty Emeriti Scholarship

Reminiscences of gathering wood in Wetzel County, West Virginia, to keep the long house warm in the winter.

F.F. Bruce: A Life, By Tim Grass, Craighton T. Hippenhammer

Faculty Scholarship – Library Science

Frederick Fyvie Bruce (1910-1990) was one of the most influential evangelical biblical scholars of the last half of the Twentieth Century within the UK and the United States at a time when highly respected evangelical academics were rare and almost non-existent. Over his lifetime he wrote over two thousand articles and reviews plus four dozen books, mostly about the Bible, biblical commentary and interpretation, and classical language translation. His approach was nonsectarian and inclusive, from the standpoint of insightful biblical translation rather than systematized theology. This biography is a fully realized, in-depth treatment, covering both Bruce’s academic career and personal …

Olivet Presidents: A History Of The Office Of The President, Kratina Simmons

Archives - Olivet History

Sources for the book include minutes from the Board of Trustees meetings, letters, university yearbooks (the Aurora), the school's newspaper (the Glimmerglass), several obituaries in newspapers, and funeral programs. The book shows the struggles the university had in its early years to keep presidents as well as its rapid growth within recent years. The last few pages include collages of photos taken during various stages of several of the presidents' lives.

Teaching The Northern Ireland Troubles Through History And Literature, Sarah Anne Jensen

Honors Program Projects

History and literature complement each other. The study of history can be beneficial to understanding literature, as literature can be beneficial to understanding history. Seamus Heaney’s poetry concerning the Troubles can be better understood with a background in the history of the conflict as well as some knowledge about Heaney’s own views. Through examining Heaney’s poetry with history and biography in mind, a greater understanding of the poetry can be achieved. Through the reading of Heaney’s poetry, a better insight into the personal side of the conflict can help the reader understand the conflict as well. The same applies to …

Social Giving Then And Now: Exploring Philanthropic Activities In The 20th Century Through Andrew Carnegie And Toms, Lauren M. Beatty

Honors Program Projects

This thesis explores social giving in the past century by looking at Andrew Carnegie and his influence on philanthropy and on the American business, TOMS, that integrates giving into its corporate structure. This historical research provides a conceptual context for the small business I created in August 2012. My business, Double Vision, applies the ideas of corporate social responsibility on a small scale to impact a community in the Dominican Republic. Included in the paper is an overview of the progression of social giving in the past century through the focus on Andrew Carnegie and TOMS, an analysis of the …

A Theodicy Of Redemptive Suffering In African American Involvement Led By Absalom Jones And Richard Allen In The Philadelphia Yellow Fever Epidemic Of 1793, Kyle Boone

Undergraduate Student Scholarship – History

This paper is a historical investigation into the involvement of African Americans during the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793. It explores key figures, details, medical realities, and media representation. The particular focus lies on the dilemma of suffering in the world and how the African American understanding of evil in this community led to their decision of involvement. Their understanding of theodicy will be weighed against modern philosophical and theological attempts to deal with theodicy.

The Effects Of Fdi And Aid On Development In Latin America, Jesse Michael Mezera

Undergraduate Student Scholarship – History

This paper, assuming a positive correlation between aid and FDI given to countries, will look to measure whether the aid given to Latin America has been effective in creating development. In order to measure development, development must first be defined in a way that will allow for concrete indicators of development. Using these seven criteria as a guide this paper will look to use data collected by studies of Latin America in these seven areas to gain a measure of how development has progressed over the last fifteen years. Once this information has been compiled, it will be compared against …