History Commons^™

Frontier: Land, Architecture, And Abstraction, Jacob Boatman

Masters Theses

The abstraction of land is a colonial process by which physical land is transformed into a conceptual or symbolic entity. This transformation occurs through various economic, architectural, and cultural practices that imbue land with abstract values, meanings, and functions beyond its physicality. This includes the division of land into parcels for economic transactions, the design and construction of built environments that shape human interactions with the land, and the cultural narratives and representations that ascribe significance to particular landscapes. Through abstraction, colonial powers devalue indigenous perspectives and relationships to the land, reducing them to mere obstacles in the path of …

Changing Of The Guard In Imperial Ideology Clement Attlee Vs. Winston Churchill, Charles C. Olson

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On 2 February 1927, the young Labour Representative and future Prime Minister Clement Attlee found himself, much to his own surprise, on the shores of Bombay, sent to find solutions to a problem he later termed "virtually insoluble. " His ship arrived to a confused reception of both noisy protesters, waving banners of "Go Back," juxtaposed by a welcoming rain of flowers and leaves by supporters of the visit.' These polar reactions to perceived British intent in India during the late 1920s no doubt showed Attlee the energy of the debate surrounding Indian independence, which only intensified through the coming …

"The Voice Of The People, And Not The Voice Of This House": Legislative Instructions In The Atlantic World And The Irish Struggle For Free Trade, 1779-1780, Ian Mclaughlin

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In 1771, on his way to London to lobby for the American cause, Benjamin Franklin visited the city of Dublin. While there, he visited with several members of che Irish Parliament, especially chose who had their own gripes with British imperialism. "I found [the Irish Patriot Party] disposed to be friends of America," he wrote of che experience to a friend, "in which disposition I endeavored to confirm chem, with the expectation chat our growing weight might in time be thrown into their scale, and, by joining our interest with theirs, might be obtained for chem as well as for …

Spain's Vision Of Empire Through Conquest, Ideology, And Law In The Sixteenth Century, Penelope Yau-Wen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines how the process of exploration, discovery, conquest and colonization of the Americas by Spain developed along with a vision of empire that involved the formulation of political theories, laws and policies by the governing elites, while responding to the actions by the conquistadors on the field. Although events on both sides of the Atlantic were not necessarily coordinated, the interests of the Court and the conquistadors intersected and were justified through a discourse that had been shaped by Humanist intellectual currents.

The thesis intends to show how the Castilian imperial vision was an experiment that began to …

Harbingers Of A New Age: Irish And Scots Irish Indian Fighters On The Colonial American Frontier, Christina A. Neely

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Through the examination of various points of Irish and Scots Irish settlement in the New World, a previously underrepresented portion of American history emerges to tell the story of a hearty and industrious people who literally went out into the wilderness and settled their own communities. Through their hard work and enterprising nature, they were able to not only survive in the face of extreme adversity on the frontier, but they preserved their culture for generations and contributed to the cultural, political, military, religious, and environmental influences that shaped the New World and the American nation. Their martial prowess and …

Contextualizing George Orwell: How Orwell's Life Experiences Influenced His Most Famous Novels, Jonah Ridgley

History and Political Science | Senior Theses

George Orwell is one of the most celebrated authors of the 20th century. His most famous novels, Animal Farm and 1984, serve as insightful commentaries on the horrors of totalitarianism. These two books have been studied extensively and incorporated into public and political discourse since his death in 1950. Contemporary right-wing and left-wing leaders and pundits both continue to reference the concepts and language in Orwell’s books to support their respective stances on various issues. Additionally, they have been presented to high schoolers and college students as simplified anti-communist novels or pro-capitalist propaganda during the Cold War. However, Orwell’s work …

The Incoherence Of Orientalists, Sarah Zaid Alafifi

Theses and Dissertations

Orientalism, the Western practice of fetishizing cultures, extends beyond mere misrepresentation of the “other;” it epitomizes the underlying structures of colonialism and imperialism, infiltrating everyday life and eroding the moral fabric of Islamic society.

This thesis analyzes colonial control through the exercise of political power and the production of knowledge, investigating key events related to Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign and the narratives of resistance that emerged in opposition to it.

Through the lens of this 18th-century expedition, the study examines how Western knowledge systematically contributed to the dismantling of Islamic systems of knowledge. Select phrases from Colonial-era printed proclamations are extracted …