History Commons^™

Adopting The "Other": A Peculiar U.S. Orientalism In The Response To The Circassian War, 1838-1859, Christopher L. Miller

History Faculty Publications

This study seeks to complicate the rather one-dimensional character of so-called "Orientalist" discourse as outlined by Edward Said by examining the way in which periodical literature in the United States during the early nineteenth century looked at a particular set of events in a particular region of the Greater Middle East: the so-called Circassian War in the Caucasus Mountains. There clearly was a variety of U.S. Orientalism that was partially a product of an imperialist project, though only partially. The attention paid to the Circassian War by nineteenth-century U.S. newspapers and magazines provides a unique window for understanding how and …

Review Of A Poverty Of Rights: Citizenship And Inequality In Twentieth-Century Rio De Janiero By Brodwyn Fischer (2010), Salvador Salinas

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Murderous Nation: A Review Of Randolph Roth's 'American Homicide', William Vance Trollinger

History Faculty Publications

In 1863, a cooper in Chillicothe, Ohio, named Schyler Courier angrily responded to a group of boys throwing snowballs at him by firing his shotgun, killing one of the boys. In 1866, in Petersburg, New York, Hiram Coon warned his employer's wife, Mary Laker, to quit taunting him for his criminal past; when she would not stop, he split her head open with an ax. In 1873, an enraged Waiden, Vermont, farmer named James Snow shot peddler John Stanton in the face for the latter's snarky comment to Snow's wife — "I guess you have money, as farmers generally have …

Bede And The Rewriting Of Sanctity, Sally Shockro

History Faculty Publications

Bede's use and revision of the anonymous Life of St Cuthbert and the redeployment of patristic texts in later continental and Anglo-Saxon ascetic and hagiographical texts.

Girls' Secondary Education In The Western World: From The 18th To The 20th Century (Book Review), Christopher Bischof

History Faculty Publications

This edited collection traces the development of girls’ secondary education over three centuries in a way that highlights national peculiarities without losing sight of ideas and debates that cut across borders. Contributors follow very similar formats, exploring historiography and key themes: religion, coeducation, the ideal of domestic motherhood, and politics. The greatest single overarching theme is what the editors describe as “the dialectic between education as a conservative force and as a force for change as expressed in both democratic and authoritarian political agendas across Europe” (p. 2). Political battleground that it was, however, there emerges from the essays as …

The Rise Of A Gulf Coast Legislator, Charles V. Waite

History Faculty Publications

The article discusses the life and political rise of Texan Democratic U.S. Senator Price Daniel (officially Marion Price Daniel). The author details Price's relationship with the Texas Democratic Party, emphasizing his thoughts on economic growth. His experiences as governor of Texas are given particular emphasis.

Clear-Eyed: African Immersion, Julius A. Amin

History Faculty Publications

Recent events including the World Cup in South Africa have done much to redeem Africa’s global image. Early European visitors wrote about the beauty of the landscape, vegetation, rivers, lakes and mountains, but labeled the inhabitants “natives” and “sub-human.” For too long, the continent was dismissed as an “exotic” place inhabited by “primitive” people considered misfits in the modern world, and as a result, some of the most vicious racial epitaphs have been detonated against them. UD’s immersion experience educates our students and reverses these stereotypes by charging them to discover for themselves firsthand the African people.

Change And Crisis: North America On The Eve Of The European Invasion, Christopher L. Miller

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

American Revolution: New Directions For A New Century, Andrew M. Schocket

History Faculty Publications

This essay maps out the directions I believe we are going, gives examples of recent trailblazing work, and offers suggestions about how we might move forward as we enter another century of scholarship.

Review: The Overflowing Of Friendship: Love Between Men And The Creation Of The American Republic, Jen Manion

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review: Mark Noll's 'The New Shape Of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith', William Vance Trollinger

History Faculty Publications

It has become commonplace to observe that the center of Christianity has moved from Euroamerica to the global South and East. Still, it is a bit jarring to realize, as Mark Noll notes at the beginning of this compelling book, that "this past Sunday" more "Anglicans attended church in each of Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda than did Anglicans in Britain and Canada and Episcopalians in the United States combined"; more "members of Brazil's Pentecostal Assemblies of God [were] at church than the combined total in the two largest U.S. Pentecostal denominations"; and more people attended the Yoido Full …

Educating Women: Schooling And Identity In England And France, 1800-1867 (Book Review), Christopher Bischof

History Faculty Publications

Christina de Bellaigue’s Educating Women: Schooling and Identity in England and France, 1800-1867 explores stereotypes about women’s boarding schools on both sides of the English-French Channel. In the process de Bellaigue identifies the basis in reality which many of the most widespread stereotypes had, including: the socially grasping schoolmistress; the schoolmistress as a gentlewoman fallen on hard times; the short-lived nature of many schools; the stress laid on the teaching of “accomplishments”; and the idea that preparing women for their domestic role was the ultimate goal of an education. However, she also simultaneously undermines these stereotypes by supplying nuance and …

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 …

Book Review: Authentic New Orleans: Tourism, Culture, And Race In The Big Easy, J. Mark Souther

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

(Review) Ladder Of Shadows: Reflecting On Medieval Vestige In Provence And Languedoc, Frederick S. Paxton

History Faculty Publications

The article reviews the book "Ladder of Shadows: Reflecting on Medieval Vestige in Provence and Languedoc," by Gustav Sobin, 236 p., Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, 2009. Series: An Ahmanson Foundation Book in the Humanities.

The Uncompromising Diary Of Sallie Mcneill, 1858-1867 (Review), Linda English

History Faculty Publications

By revealing the inner world of Sallie McNeill, a young woman of the planter class living in Brazoria County, Texas, this diary provides rich insights into life in south central Texas in the turbulent years surrounding the Civil War. This watershed event and the South's ultimate defeat prompted Sallie to write, "Slowly, we are awakening from die feeling of utter despair, which overwhelmed all classes, upon receipt of the 'news' of the fall of the Confederacy" (125). For the South (and Texas specifically) , in the span of a few short years, everything had changed. In addition to insights on …

Triangulating A Modernization Experiment: The United States, France And The Making Of The Kossou Project In Central Ivory Coast, Abou B. Bamba

History Faculty Publications

Toward the end of the 1960s, authorities in the Ivory Coast decided to build the Kossou Dam, a hydro-electric dam on the Bandama River near the geographic center of the Francophone country. Initially conceived as a technopolitical measure to meet the growing energy demand of the most economically successful country of France's former colonies, the damming experiment soon emerged as a multipurpose regional development project aimed at correcting the regional disparities that tarnished the Ivory Coast's phenomenal economic growth.

This article focuses on the Kossou modernization experience and the sociopolitical transformations that it caused. I argue that the nationalist enthusiasm …

Comrade Father Thomas Mcgrady: A Socialist Priest's Quest For Equality Through Socialism, Jacob H. Dorn

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Evelyn Aschenbrenner. A History Of Wayne State University In Photographs (Book Review), Julie Mujic

History Faculty Publications

Wayne State University (WSU) alumna and freelance writer Evelyn Aschenbrenner compiled this book to fulfill her own curiosity about the evolution of Wayne State University's campus in Detroit, Michigan.

Book review by Julie A. Mujic: Aschenbrenner, Evelyn. A History of Wayne State University in Photographs. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009. ISBN 9780814332825

Review Of The Rule Of Women In Early Modern Europe, Edited By A.J. Cruz And M. Suzuki, Elizabeth Lehfeldt

History Faculty Publications

Review of the Rule of Women in Early Modern Europe, edited by A.J. Cruz and M. Suzuki

Review: 'Storied Independent Automakers: Nash, Hudson, And American Motors', John Alfred Heitmann

History Faculty Publications

Nash, Hudson, and now even American Motors are automobile brands that have largely disappeared from the American memory. Yet, despite riding the twentieth-century economic roller coaster and operating in the shadow of the Big Three, these firms made sustained, significant technological and economic contributions. Charles K. Hyde’s Storied Independent Automakers is the author’s latest foray into the area of automotive business history, following work on the Chrysler Corporation and the Dodge brothers. A professor of History at Wayne State University, Hyde has written a needed critical business history on an important topic that complements the vast amount of “buff” and …

History Of Fort Brown, University Of Texas At Brownsville, Texas Southmost College

History Faculty Publications

Brochure includes brief descriptions of the following: The First Fort and the War with Mexico, The Second Fort and the Civil War, The Third Fort, Dr. Gorgas Fights Yellow Fever, The Brownsville Raid, National Cemetery at Fort Brown, The Mexican Revolution, Ghostly Happenings, Fort Brown and the Brownsville Community, Closure of Fort Brown, and The Historic Fort Buildings.

José Angel Gutierrez: An Oral History Conversation, Manuel F. Medrano

History Faculty Publications

The 1960's was a tumultuous decade in United States history, particularly for Mexican Americans in Texas seeking educational and political equality. In this edited transcript of an interview with prominent Chicano leader and Raza Unida founder José Angel Gutierrez, Manuel Medrano examines the various forces that shaped the life and career of the civil rights activist.

Review Of John Hill For The State Of Texas. By John L. Hill, Jr. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009. Pp. 280. Notes, Bibliography, Index. Isbn 978-1603440721. $35.00)., Randall Adrian

History Faculty Publications

The article reviews the book "John Hill for the State of Texas," by John L. HIll, Jr.

(Review) Witchcraft And The Papacy: An Account Drawing On The Formerly Secret Records Of The Roman Inquisition, Marc R. Forster

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Prescient Pacifists, William Vance Trollinger

History Faculty Publications

Reviews of two books:

• Patricia Applebaum, Kingdom to Commune: Protestant Pacifist Culture between World War I and the Vietnam Era.
• Joseph Kosek, Acts of Conscience: Christian Nonviolence and Modern American Democracy.

The Enlightenment has bequeathed us — Americans more than anyone else — the conviction that history is a story of progress. Such a notion seems ludicrous when one considers the violence of the contemporary world. As the British historian Eric Hobsbawm observes in his brilliant work The Age of Extremes, the 20th century "was without doubt the most murderous century of which we have record, both by the scale, …

Rescripting Stalinist Masculinity: Contesting The Male Ideal In Soviet Film And Society, 1953-1968, Marko Dumančić

History Faculty Publications

This dissertation traces the evolution of a new type of cinematic masculinity in the fifteen years following Joseph Stalin’s death and examines how controversial post-Stalinist movie heroes became a battleground for the country’s postwar values and ideals. During the 1950s and 1960s, postwar Soviet leadership faced the kinds of sociopolitical ruptures that were also evident on the other side of the Iron Curtain; the Communist Party leadership struggled to moderate the combined destabilizing effect of consumerism, a recalcitrant youth (sub)culture, and Cold War anxieties. Nowhere was the angst of the postwar period more obvious than in the way Soviet filmmakers …

"The Urban Praetor's Tribunal" In Spaces Of Justice In The Roman World, Eric Kondratieff

History Faculty Publications

"Book abstract: Despite the crucial role played by both law and architecture in Roman culture, the Romans never developed a type of building that was specifically and exclusively reserved for the administration of justice: courthouses did not exist in Roman antiquity. The present volume addresses this paradox by investigating the spatial settings of Roman judicial practices from a variety of perspectives. Scholars of law, topography, architecture, political history, and literature concur in putting Roman judicature back into its concrete physical context, exploring how the exercise of law interacted with the environment in which it took place, and how the spaces …

Mémoires Épistémiques Et Pouvoir D’Experts Dans Une Postcolonie Africaine: Le Cas De L’Usage Des Savoirs Africanistes Par L’Orstom En Côte D’Ivoire, Abou B. Bamba

History Faculty Publications

Partant du constat que l’Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique Outre-Mer (ORSTOM) s’est impose par son travail de recherche appliquee comme le concepteur primordial de la planification du developpement en Cote d’Ivoire a la fin des annees soixante, cet article montre que la mobilisation du souvenir des discours institues en science (ou memoires epistemiques) par les chercheurs de l’ORSTOM y a joue pour beaucoup. En se reappropriant les savoirs africanistes laisses par leurs predecesseurs que leur acces privilegie a la “bibliotheque coloniale” a rendu possible, les orstomiens en poste dans la postcolonie ivoirienne ont reussi a supplanter non seulement …

Male Same-Sex Relations In Modern China: Language, Media Representation, And Law, 1900–1949, Wenqing Kang

History Faculty Publications

The article discusses the tension in the Chinese indigenous terminology for male same-sex relations which was similar to Eve Sedgwich's description of the Western modern homosexual/heterosexual definition. It argues that the Western sexological concept of homosexuality was accepted in the early 20th century China and notes that its legal apparatus had no clear stipulations on sex between men. It indicates how writers during the first half of the 20th century were more concerned with the proper gender behavior and the image of the nation than sex itself.