History Commons^™

From Data To Victory: The Race For Analytic Superiority In Warfare, Robert Grossman, Emily Goldman

Joint Force Quarterly

Artificial intelligence technologies have reached a tipping point after decades of development. They are diffusing widely across defense and national security applications. Twenty-first century warfighters rely on analytic models in all systems, at all echelons, and in all domains. As more powerful models built on ever larger data sets become ubiquitous, militaries are in a new competition to deploy artificial intelligence. Operational art must embrace “analytic superiority.” This is the operational advantage from collecting and ingesting data, building robust models and computing infrastructure, deploying the models into operational systems, and denying adversaries' ability to do the same

This article explains …

Executive Summary, William T. Eliason

Joint Force Quarterly

In his executive summary for Joint Force Quarterly 120, Editor in Chief William T. Eliason reflects on the 40th anniversary of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 and its enduring influence on jointness, military command relationships, and defense reform. He examines General David C. Jones’s role in advancing reforms that strengthened the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, streamlined the operational chain of command, and improved cooperation among the military Services. Eliason also considers continuing debates over the law’s effectiveness and the future organization of the joint force. He then introduces the issue’s articles on cyber …

The Logic Of America’S Defense Strategy, Elbridge A. Colby

Joint Force Quarterly

In this address at the National War College, Elbridge A. Colby, Under Secretary of War for Policy, explores the strategic logic underlying the 2026 National Defense Strategy. He argues that renewed major power rivalry, military competition, and the risks posed by nuclear-armed adversaries require the United States to align its military objectives, methods, and resources with concrete political goals and American interests. Colby presents a three-part framework for doing so: denial defense, which seeks to prevent an aggressor from seizing and holding key allied or partner territory; favorable escalation management, which places the burden and risks of escalation on the …

Joint Force Quarterly, Issue 120, 3rd Quarter 2026, National Defense University Press

Joint Force Quarterly

Joint Force Quarterly 120, 3rd Quarter 2026, focuses on contemporary defense strategy, joint warfighting, professional military education, operational innovation, and military sustainment. The issue opens with Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge A. Colby’s discussion of the logic underlying the 2026 National Defense Strategy and an executive summary reflecting on the 40th anniversary of the Goldwater-Nichols Act and the future of jointness. Forum articles address analytic superiority in warfare, the development of operational objectives, and new evidence concerning the Lavelle Affair. Contributions on joint professional military education explore defensive cognitive warfare, strategist development, and cyberspace collaboration for homeland defense. …

9/11 And The Task Of History, Donald Roth

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"The ultimate task is actually more about our embodiment, about taking into ourselves a sense of the weight of history that lets us feel the lessons it has to teach us, rather than just recite them."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­remembering 9/11 from In All Things, an online hub that offers insight into maintaining and faithful and orthodox Reformed Christian worldview while fearlessly engaging in every aspect of contemporary life – until all is made new.

9/11 and the Task of History

2026-09-10 Message From The President, Morehead State University. Office Of The President.

Staff Congress Records

Message sent on September 10, 2026 by the President to the campus community regarding upcoming dates and events for the Fall Semester, personeele and academic, construction news, campus personnel recognitions and other updates, summary of the Board of Regents meeting, and honoring University Legacies.

Student Senate Meeting Minutes September 9, 2026, Student Senate-Winona State University

Student Senate Meeting Minutes

This document is the official Winona State University Student Senate Minutes for September 9, 2026.

Pageantry In The Skies: Changes To The Hendon Raf Aerial Pageant Throughout The Interwar Years In The United Kingdom, Amy Zhou

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

The Hendon RAF Aerial Pageants were held in Britain in the Hendon Aerodrome from 1920 to 1937. Initially established to promote airmindedness in the British public and legitimize the Royal Air Force so that it could remain an independent service, aerial theatre was utilized extensively to transform flight into a spectacle. As the interwar years progressed, the pageant developed complex “set pieces” that showcased elaborate simulations of military maneuvers such as strategic bombing against industrial and imperial targets, eliciting a mixture of awe and fear in the face of aviation’s destructive potential. By the mid-1930s, the focus had shifted to …

“As The Developing Situation Warrants”: U.S. Counterterrorism Policy Considered Through The 1994 Gerry Adams Visa Debate, Olivia T. Sullivan

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This thesis analyzes the 1994 U.S. decision to grant Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams a visa and what it reveals about American counterterrorism policy in the immediate post–Cold War period. Long suspected of senior involvement in the Provisional Irish Republican Army during the Troubles (1968–1998), Adams had previously been denied entry under terrorism-related immigration provisions. His case became a flashpoint inside the U.S. government: officials debated whether diplomatic opportunity, domestic political incentives, and momentum toward peace in Northern Ireland warranted a departure from the prior “no concessions” posture toward IRA-linked figures. Situating the controversy within U.S. terrorism discourse from the …

Reform And Dependency: Labor, Industry, And The Failure To Reglate American Pharmaceuticals, 1959–1964, Andrew J. Storino

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

In 1959, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver launched the first federal inquiry into high drug prices, in a series of hearings which have been reprised many times over in the decades since. While Kefauver failed to pass substantive reforms, his work garnered popular support, and has received much subsequent attention from historians. Legislative action was not the only response to pharmaceutical profiteering, however, and scholars have not yet explored how unions and civil society groups responded creatively to the issue of high drug prices — by opening not-for-profit pharmacies, bargaining for health insurance, and amassing biomedical knowledge at the grassroots level. …

The Role Of Religion In The Exoduster Movement, Rachel E. Mulick

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Religion occupies a significant role in the Exoduster movement and how scholars talk about it. References to the Biblical exodus of Egypt, Israelites, and Canaan appear time and time again. An exploration of primary and secondary sources pertaining to the movement indicates that religious language and institutions played a significant role in motivating migration and supporting migrants on their journeys. However, though religion acted as a support for many, its presence was not universal, nor did its influence rival more practical push and pull factors. Migrants were first and foremost propelled by deplorable conditions in the South; their motivations were …

The Egyptian Discovery Of The Rising Sun: Re-Evaluating The Pan-Asianist Rhetoric Of Mustafa Kamil And Trans-Imperialism, Hung Pan (Eric) Li

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Mustafa Kamil (1874–1908) is widely celebrated in modern historiography as a founding father of modern Egypt for his contributions to Egyptian nationalism. It is conventionally understood that he achieved mastery in "speaking back to the Occident" by leveraging both domestic and international support, reconciling his nationalist agenda of self-determination with Pan-Asianist rhetoric and international solidarity against Western imperialism. One of the most frequently cited pieces of evidence for this position can be found in his 1904 work on Japan, The Rising Sun, in which he praised Japan's modernization and its resistance to the West, and encouraged Egyptians to follow …

The Impossibility Of Anti-Capitalist Protests In Liberal Discourse: A Study Of Media Rhetoric During The Piquetero Movement In Argentina, 2003-2007, Grant C. Himes

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Around the turn of the twenty-first century, the piquetero movement in Argentina expanded the political sphere in Argentina by forming new coalitions of unions, the unemployed, and leftist parties in the midst of an economic crisis. However, media coverage of the protests often flattened the category of protester in a category discrete from that of the public, which more closely resembled the media’s middle class, apolitical audience. Through this rhetorical separation between the piquetero and the “public,” the newspapers Clarín and La Nación focused their discourse on the “violent” tactics of the protests, ignoring their economic demands and the struggle …

'A Hundred Times A Man': Chastity, Martial Culture And Manhood In Franco's Spain, Ava M. Golde

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Using the military as a case study, this essay seeks to understand how chastity became a symbol of complete regeneration for Spanish society, both in terms of a physical revival of a soldier’s health but also a moral and spiritual reawakening of the Catholic soul. In analyzing military magazines, instructional pamphlets, and the memoirs of soldiers, this paper unpacks the relationship between enforced male chastity and Francoist military masculinity, demonstrating how ideas of manhood were deliberately altered to fit a nationalist project of regeneration. Finally, I place this conception of the “New Spanish Man” within the broader context of militarized …

Getting A Special Education: Parents, Lawyers, And The Politics Of Disability In Postwar Pennsylvania, Emma Gabriel

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This paper explores the relationship between white parent advocates in Pennsylvania and public interest lawyers, whose litigation efforts legitimized the construction of an implicitly white disabled class in the mid-twentieth century. This analysis sheds light on the ways in which school reform became a key element in the simultaneous construction and renegotiation of intellectual disability and race in the postwar era, and foregrounded the adoption of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1975.

2026-09-08 Minutes, Morehead State University. Staff Congress.

Staff Congress Records

Staff Congress meeting minutes from September 8, 2026.

"World War I Memorials", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

Explanation of the World War I Memorials in North Alabama (Lauderdale County), including the Memorial Amphitheatre on the campus on the University of North Alabama.

The document includes two pages. However, both pages are remarkably similar and appear to be subsequent drafts of the same article.

Digitized images of the Memorial Amphitheatre are available in the University Architecture Collection To access the images, click the link, and use the search bar, located on the left side of the screen, to search the collection. In addition, an illustration of the design for the memorial amphitheater is accessible in the William Lindsey …

"Yellow Fever Epidemic", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

Draft of text for the historical marker in Tuscumbia, Alabama honoring those who died of the yellow fever epidemic in the fall of 1878.

The current historical marker for the yellow fever epidemic in Tuscumbia can be viewed on the Historical Marker Database.

"Wilson Park", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

Article about the creation and naming of Wilson Park, originally called the Town Walk, in Florence, Alabama.

"A Yankee Patient At Pope's Tavern", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

The article relates the story of Private Oglvie E. Hamblin, a union soldier and one of the last patients to be treated at Pope's Tavern when it served as a Civil War hospital.

"The Yankee Connection", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

The article summarizes the impact of the Negley family in North Alabama, including the construction of the Negley Hotel.

Union Brigadier General, James Scott Negley entered North Alabama on May 13, 1862, and through a series of skirmishes began to occupy Florence. Later, his relative, Major Albert Gallatin Negley arrived in East Florence, Alabama in response to the industrial boom.

"Wesleyan Hall, An Alabama Landmark", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

A history of Wesleyan Hall, on the Campus on the University of North Alabama.

Digitized images of Wesleyan Hall are accessible in the University Architecture Collection and William Lindsey McDonald Image Collection. To find the images, simply click on a collection link, and use the search bar, located on the left side, to search for the images.

Miscellaneous, Bruce R. Johnson

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

No abstract provided.

The Tragicomedy Of C. S. Lewis The Bald: Reflections On An Unpublished Play, Jahdiel Perez

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"Within the pages of a Vice-President’s Register (1920–1984), held in the Old Library archives of his Oxford College, Lewis handwrote, in mock Shakespearean English, 'The Tragicomicall Briefe Reigne of Lewis the Bald.' As far as we know, this is the only complete play in his corpus. Mostly unpublished until the recent release of C. S. Lewis’s Oxford (2024) by Simon Horobin, this piece has yet to receive the scholarly attention it deserves. In what follows, I seek to address this gap through a close analysis of portions of the text and its broader implications for Lewis’s approach to writing."

A Moving Image Of Eternity: Exploring C. S. Lewis's Philosophy Of Time, Brian C. Roden

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"The “Time Graph,” as it will be labeled in this essay, is obscurely nestled in C. S. Lewis’s personal manuscripts held in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. Comprised of mathematical sketches and cryptic commentary, the document has apparently escaped formal study regarding why Lewis produced it or how it might relate to his published works. More broadly, does it have any bearing on a coherent philosophy of time that Lewis may have held? The aim of this essay is to demonstrate that the Time Graph is very likely an early draft of the mechanics of time travel …

Tracing Sehnsucht: Longing For The "Hidden Country", Charlie Reeder

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"This thesis will argue that Lewis employs a consistent set of literary themes and biblical echoes to articulate longing throughout his career, and that his early non-Christian, and often anti-Christian, poetry, such as Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics (1919) and Dymer (1926), plays a formative role in shaping his later depictions of Sehnsucht. Although his theological commitments and vocabulary evolve significantly after his conversion, an engagement with a predominantly Judeo-Christian literary inheritance is apparent from the outset. A central focus here will be Lewis’s use of place. In his early poetry, recurring biblical resonances, conceptual images, and spatial …

The Mythos Of Gender In Till We Have Faces, Annie Crawford

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"In Till We Have Faces, C. S. Lewis draws from the mythic imagery of Cupid and Psyche to offer a potent meditation on the symbolism of gender. Through the recurring imagery of mountain, temple, and womb, Lewis reinterprets classical archetypes within a Christian imagination to reveal gender not as a social construct or biological accident but as a spiritual polarity woven into the fabric of creation. In this symbolic cosmos, mas- culinity and femininity signify the dynamic interplay of divine initiative and creaturely receptivity—the eternal rhythm of giving and receiving that structures both nature and grace. Read in this light, …

C. S. Lewis, The Expert Communicator, Steven A. Beebe

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"What evidence supports the claim that Lewis is an expert communicator? He remains a popular author, one of the most read authors of all time. He was a professional communicator; he earned his living communicating: teaching, writing, and speaking. And, as this essay has documented, he was a professor of communication. He made insightful observations about the role, nature, and function of communication throughout the corpus of his work. Although his planned book with J. R. R. Tolkien, “Language and Human Nature,” was never published, his initial ideas found in the draft of the partial opening chapter, coupled with a …

Screwtape In Wartime, Joe Ricke

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"This essay looks closely at the connections between Lewis’s wartime message to his listeners in his now famous, but then unlikely, sermon, “Learning in Wartime,” on 22 October 1939 and his wartime novel, The Screwtape Letters. It will range widely from biography to history to literary influences and to close reading of the texts to help reflect on its place not only in Lewis’s oeuvre but in his life and the lives of all those who, then and now, attend to the distinction between what Lewis (and, surprisingly, Screwtape) makes between the local wars of time and space and the …

Signifying Nothing? Narnia, Inanity, And A. L. Rowse, Michael Ward

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"This essay explores the origins of the word Narnia, the name that Lewis gave to the fictional kingdom in which his seven Chronicles of Narnia are mostly set. How did he come by it? What, if anything, does the word mean?...I will be pursuing two lines of enquiry and two sets of intriguing connections that strike me as potentially illuminating. What follows is more of a theory for consideration than a hard-and-fast conclusion for acceptance. But though I write with a degree of tentativeness, I hope, nonetheless, to shed some light upon Lewis’s statements about his naming
of Narnia and …