Other History Commons^™

Effects Of The United States Reconstruction On Nationalism In The Japanese Education System, Connell Murphy

Voces Novae

When the United States began its reconstruction of Japan after World War II, they consistently put their own interests within the country before what would benefit Japan the most . While the first two years of the occupation led to significant changes inside and outside schools, including the Ministry of Education’s diminished role, increased local involvement in the academic system, and the removal of nationalistic “morality” classes such as shushin. All of these changes were necessary efforts to denationalize and decentralize Japan’s educational system and allow more choices for teachers and schools. When Washington began to take an increased interest …

Threads Of The Zoot Suit Riots: How The Initial Explanations For The Riots Hold Up Today, Antonio Franco

Voces Novae

This paper is about the 1943 Los Angeles Zoot suit Riots. These riots lasted for five days and were fought between the city’s young Mexican-American population and U.S. servicemen who were in the city. The name comes from a popular style that many young Mexican-Americans in L.A. wore at the time called the zoot suit. The Zoot Suit Riots was one of the most important moments in Chicano history. Throughout the riots as well as sometime afterward, many who were in the city at the time tried to discern its origins. The local newspapers, the Los Angeles Police Department, Mexican-Americans, …

Fighting A War Without Rifles: Deconstructing The Image Of The Unflappable Medic, Robert Del Toro

Voces Novae

“Fighting a War Without Rifles: Deconstructing the Image of the Unflappable Medic” focuses on comparing the official romanticized image of the medic in World War II and the soldiers’ reality. During the Second World War, the US Army in Europe faced high casualty rates, and the soldiers of the Medical Department were tasked with treating the wounded. The medic was the first echelon of care that the wounded would receive, as well as the most important. After the War, the medics were portrayed in a romanticized light. Official literature presented them as highly competent soldiers; infantry men saw them as …

The Warner Brothers Prove Their Patriotism, Lara Jacobson

Voces Novae

Warner Bros. Pictures did not become the widely successful company they are today by sitting back and letting “the world go to pot.” The Brothers patriotic beginnings in America earned them a reputation as trailblazers in the motion picture industry. Their Polish and Jewish family heritage initially motivated the four brothers to take a stand when they released Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) as a direct result of Hitler’s growing reign in Europe. Many of the Brothers’ early movies focused on injustice, prejudice, and violation of basic human rights; the era of World War II would be no different. …

French Land, Algerian People: Nineteenth-Century French Discourse On Algeria And Its Consequences, Paige Gulley

Voces Novae

Language is fundamental in shaping our understanding of the world we live, and as such, studies of discourse are invaluable in providing insight into the worldviews of historical actors. Though much has been written on the depiction of colonized peoples and its Oriental undertones, little has been said about the discourse on a colony itself. In examining the French discourse on Algeria in the nineteenth century, it becomes clear that the French privileged Algeria as a rich and valuable resource for France even as they decried the “backwardness” of the people of Algeria. While ignoring its inhabitants completely or discussing …

Interview With Dr. Sergei Khrushchev, February 20, 2009, Kyle Kordon

Voces Novae

"On February 20, 2009 I interviewed Dr. Sergei Khrushchev, the son of the late Soviet Premier, Nikita S. Khrushchev. The following is the transcript of that interview. This is the second of two interviews that I conducted with the younger Khrushchev. This interview was conducted after the beginning of the spring semester in 2009 of my senior year. The purpose of this interview was more focused than the first as I had done extensive research on my undergraduate thesis topic. We discussed a number of events that pertained directly to Nikita Khrushchev's 1959 visit to the United States. We talked …

Interview With Dr. Sergei Khrushchev, April 18, 2008, Kyle Kordon

Voces Novae

"On April 18, 2008 I interviewed Dr. Sergei Khrushchev, the son of the late Soviet Premier, Nikita S. Khrushchev. The following is the transcript of that interview. This was the first of two interviews that I conducted with the younger Khrushchev at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The topic of the interview was very broad. Its original purpose was for a research paper for a Russian History class that I took in the spring of 2008 at Chapman University, instructed by Dr. William Cumiford. My goal was to discuss as many topics as possible in order to gain some …

Fighting On Borrowed Wings: The Combat Experiences Of Americans Serving With French And British Units During The First World War, Kyle Nellesen

Voces Novae

During the First World War there were hundreds of Americans who enlisted in the air forces of both France and Great Britain. Through the use of primary documents from these pilots, this paper focuses on the unique experiences of the nearly six hundred men who flew under the command of America’s allies. This includes the discussion of the myths of air combat which envisioned it as a chivalrous battle in the clouds while the reality as experienced by pilots was extremely dangerous and anything but glamorous. The differences in each air force, French, British, as well as the United States, …

The Malleus Maleficarum And King James: Defining Witchcraft, Elizabeth Mack

Voces Novae

Heinrich Kramer’s Malleus Maleficarum was a medieval treatise on witchcraft, describing the nature of witchcraft and the appropriate punishment for accused witches. After disappearing into obscurity in the early sixteenth century, it resurfaced during the rise of the early modern witch hunts. The reprinting of the Malleus at this time has often led to the belief that the medieval text played a large role in this rise in witch hunts. However, a comparison of the Malleus to later works shows a shift in the definitions of witchcraft during the early modern era. This is especially evident in the work of …

Khrushchev Comes To America: The Advent Of Mutual Understanding, Kyle A. Kordon

Voces Novae

Soviet-American relations during the Cold War can be characterized by a series of highs and lows that were perpetuated by a handful of specific events. Nikita Khrushchev’s visit to the United States in September 1959 was one of such events. This trip culminated in the development of mutual understanding, an idea that was both a cultural and a political exchange, which set the stage for better relations between the two nations during that period of the Cold War. Even though historians neglect the impact of Khrushchev’s visit, without these initial steps later breakthroughs might not have been possible.

Soviet Stooge Or Spanish Socialist? The Political Ideology Of Juan Negrín, Jessica Jones

Voces Novae

During the Spanish Civil War, Dr. Juan Negrín was asked to create a new government for the Spanish Republic. In May 1938, he gave a speech delineating his aims for the Republic through his Thirteen-Point Program. As the last Prime Minister of the Republic, Juan Negrín was criticized for being a Communist sympathizer and a puppet of Joseph Stalin. This paper focuses on deconstruction Juan Negrín’s Thirteen-Points to argue that he was not a puppet of Stalin, nor was he creating a new government that involved Communist policies. This paper concludes that Juan Negrín was not a puppet of Stalin …

The Bum Blockade: Los Angeles And The Great Depression, Hailey Giczy

Voces Novae

This paper focuses on the Bum Blockade, a little known policy implemented by Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief James Edgar Davis in early February 1936 to keep migrants out of California with a border patrol and to deport migrants already inside California to other states. This research is designed to analyze the scope and public perception of the LAPD’s treatment of Dust Bowl migrants both inside and outside of its formal jurisdiction. This topic has been mostly overlooked in past examinations of this time period, and is crucial to understanding the reactions of many local authorities in the United …

The Battle Of The Somme: How The 18th Division Avoided Disaster, 1 July 1916, Paul Fellman

Voces Novae

This paper focuses on the unique ability of the British 18th Division to attain all of its allocated goals on July 1, 1916, the first day at the Battle of the Somme. The history of that day is burdened by the dismal failure of the British Army and ashocking 60,000 British casualties. Although recent scholars have breathed new life into discussion concerning the Battle of the Somme, they have largely ignored the story of the 18th Division and its commanding general, Sir Ivor Maxse. Historians tend to neglect two crucial elements which heavily influenced the 18th’s success—the superb training and …

Greed At The New York Stock Exchange And The Levitation Of The Pentagon: Early Protest Theatre By Abbie Hoffman And Jerry Rubin, Ashley Duree

Voces Novae

This paper focuses on the theoretical and scholarly influences upon Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin in the years prior to 1967, and how that affected their motivations and decisions regarding their pre-Yippie activism in the fall of 1967. It focuses on two events: the August demonstration at the New York Stock Exchange and the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam’s March on the Pentagon in October (specifically on Jerry Rubin’s role and Abbie Hoffman’s intent to levitate the Pentagon). In providing details about these two events in relation to their theoretical and scholarly influences, this paper analyzes how …

"Vivez Sans Temps Morts, Jouissez Sans Entraves:" Language And Identity In The May '68 Student-Worker Action Committees, John Cowles

Voces Novae

This paper attempts to recast and distance the interpretation of May '68 away from popular historiographical trends in which the movement is treated as a "generational revolt" or a "cultural revolution" that allowed France to develop into a modern, liberal society. The character of the relationship between militant students and workers remains the most complicated and understudied element of the uprising. Thus, the actions taken by student and worker militants at the occupied Sorbonne constitute the most radical element of the movement, and represented the only cases in which the radical language produced by activist students achieved form, namely in …

Bean Na H-Éireann: Feminism And Nationalism In An Irish Journal, 1908-1911, Brittany Columbus

Voces Novae

Bean na h-Éireann is credited with being the first nationalist-feminist paper of Ireland, however scholars who generously award this title are mistaken. The articles of Bean na h-Éireann not only avoid commentary in favor of the women’s movement but actually hinder the women’s agenda by conforming to the preexisting ideas “women’s issues” such as clothing, consumerism, household duties and childcare. This paper analyzes the articles during the entire length of publication (1908-1911). Rather than encourage the women of Ireland to expand their roles in the nationalist movement, writers force their readers to stay within the confines of the household sphere …

Using Wikipedia In Israel Studies Courses, Shira Klein

History Faculty Articles and Research

Instructors of Israeli history or literature, like professors in other areas, complain about students’ use of Wikipedia—and with good reason. Unlike peer-reviewed scholarship, many Wikipedia articles contain information that is both incomplete and wrong. Most instructors will warn their students that relying on Wikipedia is a sure recipe for failing assignments. Yet there is a way to mobilize this giant encyclopedia for pedagogical purposes. When students in Israel Studies classes are assigned to edit Wikipedia articles, they achieve multiple goals: they gain critical reading skills, shape public knowledge about Israel, and engage in active learning. This article explains how to …

Civil Liberties And The Dual Legacy Of The Founding, John W. Compton

Political Science Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"This chapter will argue that the framers’ dual legacy in the area of civil liberties has cast a long historical shadow. Since the early republic, Americans have invoked constitutional civil liberties provisions to challenge customary forms of authority. Yet establishing the abstract legitimacy of one's claim – that it comports with a particular conception of religious liberty or the freedom of speech, for example – has typically been insufficient to prevail in the courts."

Review Of Rulers, Religion, & Riches: Why The West Got Rich And The Middle East Did Not, Lynne P. Doti

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Jared Rubin's Rulers, Religion, & Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not.

Mansplaining Vietnam: Male Veterans And America's Popular Image Of The Vietnam War, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Articles and Research

Of the more than 3 million Americans who deployed to Southeast Asia during the United States' involvement in the Vietnamese civil war, only some 7,500 were women. Thus, it seems reasonable that memoirs, novels, and film would privilege the male experience when remembering the Vietnam War. Yet in the aftermath of South Vietnam's collapse, Americans' memory of the war narrowed even further, equating the conflict as a whole to the male combat veteran's story. This synthetic literary review examines some of the more lasting works sustaining the popular narrative of Vietnam, one that was constructed, in substantial part, by veterans …

Italy’S Jews From Emancipation To Fascism, Shira Klein

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

How did Italy treat Jews during World War II? Historians have shown beyond doubt that many Italians were complicit in the Holocaust, yet Italy is still known as the Axis state that helped Jews. Shira Klein uncovers how Italian Jews, though victims of Italian persecution, promoted the view that Fascist Italy was categorically good to them. She shows how the Jews' experience in the decades before World War II - during which they became fervent Italian patriots while maintaining their distinctive Jewish culture - led them later to bolster the myth of Italy's wartime innocence in the Fascist racial campaign. …

Quantitative Historical Analysis Uncovers A Single Dimension Of Complexity That Structures Global Variation In Human Social Organization, Peter Turchin, Thomas E. Currie, Harvey Whitehouse, Pieter François, Kevin Feeney, Daniel Mullins, Daniel Hoyer, Christina Collins, Stephanie Grohmann, Patrick Savage, Gavin Mendel-Gleason, Edward Turner, Agathe Dupeyron, Enrico Cioni, Jenny Reddish, Jill Levine, Greine Jordan, Eva Brandl, Alice Williams, Rudolf Cesaretti, Marta Krueger, Alessandro Ceccarelli, Joe Figliulo-Rosswurm, Po-Ju Tuan, Peter Peregrine, Arkadiusz Marciniak, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Nikolay Kradin, Andrey Korotayev, Alessio Palmisano, David Baker, Julye Bidmead, Peter Bol, David Christian, Connie Cook, Alan Covey, Gary Feinman, Árni Daníel Júlíusson, Axel Kristinsson, John Miksic, Ruth Mostern, Camero Petrie, Peter Rudiak-Gould, Barend Ter Haar, Vesna Wallace, Victor Mair, Liye Xie, John Baines, Elizabeth Bridges, Joseph Manning, Bruce Lockhart, Amy Bogaard, Charles Spencer

Religious Studies Faculty Articles and Research

Do human societies from around the world exhibit similarities in the way that they are structured, and show commonalities in the ways that they have evolved? These are long-standing questions that have proven difficult to answer. To test between competing hypotheses, we constructed a massive repository of historical and archaeological information known as “Seshat: Global History Databank.” We systematically coded data on 414 societies from 30 regions around the world spanning the last 10,000 years. We were able to capture information on 51 variables reflecting nine characteristics of human societies, such as social scale, economy, features of governance, and information …

Withdrawal: Reassessing America's Final Years In Vietnam, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Withdrawal is a groundbreaking reassessment that tells a far different story of the Vietnam War. Daddis convincingly argues that the entire US effort in South Vietnam was incapable of reversing the downward trends of a complicated Vietnamese conflict that by 1968 had turned into a political-military stalemate. Despite a new articulation of strategy, Abrams's approach could not materially alter a war no longer vital to US national security or global dominance. Once the Nixon White House made the political decision to withdraw from Southeast Asia, Abrams's military strategy was unable to change either the course or outcome of a decades' …

“A Disconnected Dialogue: American Military Strategy, 1964-1968,” Oklahoma Humanities, Vol. 10, No. 2, Fall-Winter 2017., Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Articles and Research

"The admission, supported by a careful reading of the historical record, begs larger questions: How do we remember American strategy in Vietnam? What language do we use to describe a war that proved so tragic, not only for the United States but, perhaps more importantly, for the millions of Vietnamese who lost their lives in a decades-long civil war? In coming to grips with a complex war, Americans, then and now, have relied on a series of tropes to streamline their conversations about a distasteful war."

Review Of Dumitru, Diana, The State, Antisemitism, And Collaboration In The Holocaust: The Borderlands Of Romania And The Soviet Union And Geissbühler, Simon, Ed., Romania And The Holocaust: Events, Contexts, Aftermath, Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Articles and Research

Reviews of The State, Antisemitism, and Collaboration in the Holocaust: The Borderlands of Romania and the Soviet Union by Diana Dumitru and Romania and the Holocaust: Events, Contexts, Aftermath, edited by Simon Geissbühler.

Oral History Of Migrants, Shira Klein

History Teaching Resources

This is a collection of collections of oral histories by migrants that can be used both for teaching and for research purposes.

Mybarrio: Emigdio Vasquez And Chicana/O Identity In Orange County, Natalie Lawler, Denise Johnson, Marcus Herse, Jessica Bocinski, Manon Wogahn

Exhibition Catalogs

"Emigdio Vasquez created artwork that challenged Orange County’s more prominent narrative of wealthy beachside neighborhoods. He painted the brown bodies and brown histories that defined our earliest communities and economy... Vasquez produced much of the local art history that Orange County should be known for and should protect. It is with this perspective that Chapman University is proud to present the exhibition, My Barrio: Emigdio Vasquez and Chicana/o Identity in Orange County, in conjunction with the Getty Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative. We hope to initiate discourse not only about Vasquez’s prolific career, but also about the larger political …

Introduction To Richard Nixon And Europe : The Reshaping Of The Postwar Atlantic World, Luke A. Nichter

Presidential Studies Faculty Books and Book Chapters

The U.S.-European relationship remains the closest and most important alliance in the world. Since 1945, successive American presidents each put their own touches on transatlantic relations, but the literature has reached only into the presidency of Lyndon Johnson (1963-9). This first study of transatlantic relations during the era of Richard Nixon shows a complex, turbulent period during which the postwar period came to an end, and the modern era came to be on both sides of the Atlantic in terms of political, economic, and military relations.

3rd Place Contest Entry: “Cry ‘Havoc!’ And Let Slip The Dogs Of War!”: The Canine Experience In The A.E.F., Amanda Larsh

Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize

This is Amanda Larsh's submission for the 2017 Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize, which won third place. She wrote about the experiences of canine units in the American military during World War I. ou can read the final essay that came out of her research here.

Amanda is a senior at Chapman University, majoring in History and News & Documentary studies. Her faculty mentor is Dr. Leland L. Estes.

3rd Place Research Paper: “Cry ‘Havoc!’ And Let Slip The Dogs Of War!”: The Canine Experience In The A.E.F., Amanda Larsh

Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize

For thousands of years man and canine have hunted, fought, and survived together, eventually strengthening their relationship and reaching the bond experienced in modern times. Although scientists remain unsure as to when canine domestication began, modern dogs are dramatically different from their ancestors in more ways than merely the size of their snout.^[1] While World War I signaled a new era of warfare for humans, the role dogs played was not new or unfamiliar. Dogs battled alongside humans since the Stone Age, performed sentry duty under Napoleon’s rule of Alexandria and acted as scouts in the Spanish-American War.^{[2] …}