European History Commons^™

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 38. Alfred Russel Wallace's "Revolt Of Democracy": A Critical Analysis Of Early 20th Century Labor Theory And Its Contemporary Relevance, James Williams, Charles H. Smith Editor

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

This article examines Alfred Russel Wallace’s political treatise The Revolt of Democracy (1913), analyzing his theoretical framework for addressing labor unrest and economic inequality in early 20th-century Britain. Wallace's work presents a comprehensive critique of competitive capitalism and proposes systematic government intervention to address structural poverty. Through close textual analysis and comparison with contemporary UK labor conditions, this study evaluates the enduring relevance of Wallace's economic theories and policy prescriptions. The analysis reveals significant continuities between early 20th-century and contemporary debates about living wages, government employment standards, and wealth redistribution, while highlighting both the prescience and limitations of Wallace’s analytical …

From Heaven To Hell: A Reinterpretation Of Comparison Between Germany’S Airborne Fallschirmjäger Operations And The Allied Airborne Operation At Arnhem In World War Ii, Jeremy Herbert

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis examines the legacy of the German paratrooper corps and compares them to similar Allied operations during World War II. Relying on archival documents as well as 80 years of analysis by historians, the thesis argues that the overwhelming consensus among historians of the German Fallschirmjäger as a failed experiment is undeserved, since the pitfalls experienced during their operations pale in comparison to similar British operations. The German invasion of Crete in 1941 serves as the base example for Anglophone historians who favor the idea of German failure solely based on the number of German casualties. In reality, the …

Ua12/2/2 Talisman: Connection, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

Spring 2025 Talisman:

• Alali, Cecilia & Ragan Harrington. Connection
• Hardesty, Emma. On a Roll – Dungeons & Dragons
• Muscutt, Carson. Grinding Through Life – Molotov Skateshop
• Cox, Kate. Stopwatch
• Harrington, Ragan. 1 Campus, 7 Strangers – Logan Hesse, Nicholas Basile, Spencer Winterbottom, Alliyah Jones, Alex Gehring, Annie McClurg, Rowan Finley
• Vickers, Abigail. Forged in Combat – Mixed Martial Arts
• Wood-Morris, Oli. Survivors to Neighbors – Bosnian Refugees
• Jordan, Shylin. Severed Roots
• Bivens, Emily. Behind the Screen – Social Media
• Dean, Clarissa. Shear Talent – Shake Rag Barbershop
• Sutton, Avery. For the Love of the Old – Thrift Shopping
• Phelps, Maggie. …

Baird, Nancy Disher, B. 1935 (Sc 3706), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3706. Notes and typescripted portions of letters, diaries and journals of women who emigrated to South Africa from the United Kingdom, 1819-1892. From collections in South African repositories, including the Cory Library, Grahamstown.

Ua94/5/6 Lucian Flora Student/Alumni Papers, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Scrapbook and memoirs created by alumni Lucian Flora of Smiths Grove, Kentucky of his activities as a soldier in World War II. Flora saw action through North Africa and Italy from 1941 to 1945.

Ua1c11/128 Lucian Flora Photo Collection, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Photographs and postcards removed from Lucian Flora's World War II scrapbook.

Landseer, Edwin, 1802-1873 (Sc 3703), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3703. Letter, 16 November 1828, from artist Edwin Landseer, Lisson Grove, London, to fellow artist and collector William Mayor in Islington. He apologizes for missing a recent meeting and asks Mayor to visit him the following Saturday and “dine in a very quiet way here.”

Ua12/2/1 College Heights Herald: A Place To Call Home, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

Magazine issue of the College Heights Herald for the period October 24 - November 27, 2022.

• Downtown Bowling Green – Restaurants
• Homecoming 2022
• Stone, Damon. WK Liquors Rebuilds After Tornado
• Reed, Bailey. The Making of an SGA President – Cole Bornefeld
• Fountain Row Creates a New Atmosphere Downtown
• Renovated Apartments Offer Home-like Feel – Campus Flats
• Richardson, La’Quan. Kappa Alpha Psi Sponsor Comes Home After 53 Years – Craig Taylor
• Turner, B. Life Continues for Ukrainian Student in the Bluegrass – Mariia Novoselia
• Collins, Michael. Family 5,730 Miles in the Making – Frank Aryee, Immigration, Naturalization

Anderson, Robert (Sc 3661), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3661. Certificate, 22 November 1822, of Robert Anderson, Cockplay Farm near Blackford, Scotland, confirming the faithful service of Helen Anderson for two years and her voluntary departure. Signed by Anderson and Helen Gray.

Beveridge, John (Sc 3660), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3660. Acknowledgment, 2 December 1826, of John Beveridge, Milnathort, Scotland, of wages owed to David Anderson and son; and direction, 31 March 1827, to shoemaker Andrew Morison to offset a debt owed to Beveridge by delivering a pair of shoes to Anderson as part of the settlement. The reverse includes notes of labor performed by Anderson for one Robert Ritchie.

"They Will Change The Situation Immediately": Perpetrator Subgroups And Germany's Genocidal Practices In Southwest Africa, James Michael Thaxton

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The genocide of the Herero tribe in German Southwest Africa illuminates the horrors of colonialism broadly and of German settler colonialism more specifically. I contend that the perpetrators of this event can be separated into two broad subgroups, the Old Africans and the Metropole Soldiers, distinguished by their intentions, exploitative and exterminatory respectively, concerning the indigenous tribes. Those intentions were formed over varying lengths of time but are the result of either firsthand experience with the racial hierarchy in the colony or relying on information and misinformation relayed to the metropole. Utilizing primarily letters, diaries, journals, and postcards, I argue …

The Common Man And The Rise Of The Anabaptist Kingdom Of Munster, 1534-1535, Andrew Roebuck

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This essay studies the causes of the rise of the Anabaptist Kingdom of Munster, with special emphasis on the actions and agency of the common people. The analysis begins with the two main primary sources, Hermann von Kerssenbrock and Henry Gresbeck, whose accounts provide firsthand knowledge of how events in Munster led to the Anabaptist takeover. Care is taken to read beyond some of the biases and assumptions made by those authors to gain the clearest insight for what really happened.

The essay looks at Anabaptism itself, including what it meant to be Anabaptist from the perspectives of participants and …

Forgotten Mistakes: Crossing The Rhine Gorge, 1945, Michael Duncan

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In the years following World War II, official military records along with news reports and personal accounts of senior military leaders formed a narrative that emphasized American exceptionalism and focused on the success of the United States military. That original narrative became a foundation for foreign policy and military doctrine, and its characterization of the tactical and operational decisions made by American military leaders has remained almost entirely unchallenged. This thesis seeks to reverse that trend by carefully analyzing the tactical and operational aspects of one specific event, the crossing of the Rhine Gorge by the 89th Infantry Division.

The …

The Committee Of Union And Progress And World War I, Ella Shipp

The Student Researcher: A Phi Alpha Theta Publication

The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), which was born out of the Young Turks (founded in 1889), had the stated goal of restoring the 1876 Constitution and Parliament, and was inspired by Young Ottomans such as Namik Kemal.1 However, the group also had a strong streak of nationalism and Social Darwinism influenced by strands of European thought. It became increasingly dominated by rigid thinking and unexperienced young officers who ultimately formed a triumvirate and brought the Ottoman Empire into WWI on the side of the Germans. (first paragraph)

Rivers Of Blood And Money: The Herero Genocide In German Southwest Africa, Thomas Burden

The Student Researcher: A Phi Alpha Theta Publication

The history of African colonialism is filled with stories of atrocity perpetrated under the guise of cultural or racial superiority. The death of 32,000 civilians in British concentration camps during the Second Boer War, and the horrors perpetrated in the Belgian Congo are only two examples of the effects of European imperialism in Africa.1 When the Herero people rebelled against the German colonial government in 1904, the Schutztruppe and colonial officials responded with a brutality that mirrored their fellow European colonizers.2 However, unlike the other European powers, Imperial Germany cast their conflict with the Herero in terms of a racial …

Bethlehem Chapel: How A Place Can Be Reinterpreted By Government, Maya Lemaster

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

An important source of legitimacy for all types of government is the creation of or building up of a sense of nationhood for the citizens of the state. This can be achieved in many ways, including through the use of physical nationalist symbols. In my paper, I address this topic by exploring how the Communist government of Czechoslovakia reinterpreted and changed the traditional meaning of the historical Bethlehem Chapel in Prague in order to fit their own ideology. I found that the Communist government emphasized the communal aspects of the Hussite movement and ignored religious associations. My research is primarily …

The Student Researcher 2016 (Title Page, Preface, Table Of Contents), Selena Sanderfer Faculty Advisor

The Student Researcher: A Phi Alpha Theta Publication

No abstract provided.

"Future City In The Heroic Past: Rome, Romans, And Roman Landscapes In Aeneid 6–8", Eric Kondratieff

History Faculty Publications

From the Intro: “Arms and the Man I sing…” So Vergil begins his epic tale of Aeneas, who overcomes tremendous obstacles to find and establish a new home for his wandering band of Trojan refugees. Were it metrically possible, Vergil could have begun with “Cities and the Man I sing,” for Aeneas’ quest for a new home involves encounters with cities of all types: ancient and new, great and small, real and unreal. These include Dido’s Carthaginian boomtown (1.419–494), Helenus’ humble neo-Troy (3.349–353) and Latinus’ lofty citadel (7.149–192). Of course, central to his quest is the destiny of Rome, whose …

The Broad, Toiling Masses In All The Continents: Anticolonial Activists And The Atlantic Charter, Mark Reeves

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The 1941 Atlantic Charter’s references to self-determination galvanized anticolonial nationalists during the Second World War. These activists used the principles enumerated in the Atlantic Charter to frame their demands. This thesis examines three cases in the broader global context during the war, from vastly different colonial and wartime situations: British-ruled India, French-ruled Syria, and the U.S.- ruled Philippines. Across these different situations, anticolonial nationalists used the Atlantic Charter in an attempt to legitimate their own projects. This thesis shows that the elite nationalist movements examined here used a common rhetoric from the Charter, but in variable ways. Each case study …

The Student Researcher Volume 1 (Full Publication), Selena Sanderfer Faculty Advisor

The Student Researcher: A Phi Alpha Theta Publication

No abstract provided.

Rhetoric, Rights, And Pragmatism In The Germanies: Enlightenment Reform In Eighteenth-Century Prussia And Bavaria, Benjamin T. Harris

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This project highlights the nature of Enlightenment reform in 18^th-century Germany, particularly in the Kingdom of Prussia and the Electorate of Bavaria under Frederick II and Maximilian III Joseph. Both of these rulers launch similar reforms under the guise of enlightened absolutism and enlightenment rhetoric with very different results, each catering to the specific needs of their respective principalities. Reform is offered along the lines of compulsory education, codification, humanitarian legal reform, and religious toleration, all in the spirit of the Enlightenment. However, when the extent and details of these reforms are examined, it can be demonstrated that …

Ua51/1 Collections & Connections, Jennifer Wilson

Collections & Connections

This is the Fall 2013-Winter 2014 issue of the biannual newsletter of the Western Kentucky University Libraries. It headlines WKU Manuscript/Folklife Archives Coordinator Jonathan Jeffrey's collection of the remembrances of JFK's visit to Bowling Green in 1960 and an excerpt from Ann Denes Wagner's recollection of her father Nick Denes, head coach at Western Kentucky State during the 1960s. Other major events featured in this issue include the Libraries' co-sponsorship of the International Film Series, its participation in the university's homecoming activities, its continued effort in offering the Far Away Places speaker series and the SOKY Reads program, and the …

All This Is Your World: Soviet Tourism At Home And Abroad After Stalin, Marko Dumančić

History Faculty Publications

Book Review in Nationalities Papers The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity

African Agency In The Rally Of French Equatorial Africa, August-November 1940, Mark Reeves

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

From August to November 1940, the territories of French Equatorial Africa rallied to Charles de Gaulle’s self-proclaimed Free French government in London, rather than the Vichy government set up after the German defeat of France in June. While this episode concerns European actions in European-ruled colonies, African actors pervade the story, especially as soldiers. Africans constituted the indirect audience of all the rallies by living in the territories whose policies were affected. Africans served as actors in the role of soldiers. As soldiers, African actors exhibited agency both in actions taken during operations and by their presence in the colonial …

From Priest's Whore To Pastor's Wife: Clerical Marriage And The Process Of Reform In The Early German Reformation, Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer

History Faculty Book Gallery

On 13 June 1525, Martin Luther married Katharina von Bora, a former nun, in a private ceremony officiated by city preacher Johann Bugenhagen. Whilst Luther was not the first former monk or Reformer to marry, his marriage immediately became one of the iconic episodes of the Protestant Reformation. From that point on, the marital status of clergy would be a pivotal dividing line between the Catholic and Protestant churches. Tackling the early stages of this divide, this book provides a fresh assessment of clerical marriage in the first half of the sixteenth century, when the debates were undecided and the …

Ua94/6/11 Student / Alumni Personal Papers Wku Darwin Newton, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Notebooks, notes and papers written by Darwin Newton during his time as a student at WKU.

Promoting Unity Through Propaganda: How The British Government Utilized Posters During The Second World War, Elizabeth Tate Goins

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Comprised of four separate countries, the United Kingdom is a state unlike any other. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all have distinct identities, which has been a cause for discord throughout British history. However, during the Second World War the Ministry of Information, under the guidance of the Conservative government and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, launched a poster-based propaganda campaign aimed towards unifying the UK under a common national self-identity. By emphasizing shared qualities such as resilience, pragmatism, humor, patriotism and even the concept of unity itself, the Ministry of Information fostered a sense of national self-identity with the …

The Great Men Of Christendom: The Failure Of The Third Crusade, Justin Lee Mathews

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis is a study of the reasons for the failure of the Third Crusade to achieve its stated objectives, despite the many advantages with which the venture began. It is proposed herein that the Third Crusade—and by extension all of the previous and subsequent Crusades—were destined to fail because of structural disadvantages which plagued the expeditions to the Holy Land. The Christians in the Holy Land were not selfsufficient, and they depended on an extensive amount of aid from Europe for their existence, but the Christians of Europe had their own goals and concerns which did not allow them …

Kleijnen, Maria Jozefina, 1926-2010 (Mss 353), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 353. Correspondence of Maria Jozefina "Mia" Kleijnen and her family in the Netherlands with the Grise family of Bowling Green, Kentucky. She writes of family matters, conditions in the Netherlands following World War II, and of Dutch life and customs. Also included are letters to the Grises from other European correspondents.

Young Men's Christian Association (Y.M.C.A.) - Rennes, France (Mss 312), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Collection 312. Guest book of the American YMCA kept at Rennes, France, February-August 1919. Includes soldiers' names, military units, home towns and remarks. Also includes a 1918 postcard showing typical YMCA "hut."