Political History Commons^™

The Invention Of Modern State Terrorism During The French Revolution, Guillaume Ansart

Re-visioning Terrorism

This essay discusses three aspects of the Terror (September 1793–July 1794): (1) The Institutions of the Terror: The Committee of General Security, the Committee of Public Safety, and the Revolutionary Tribunal; (2) the Theory of Terror: The unity and indivisibility of the people, the category of enemy of the people, and the concept of Revolution as a state of war against aristocratic/foreign conspiracies; (3) the Language of Terror: The Terror is also a performative language, a language which embodies terror by aiming to silence all debate. In this sense, the language of Terror is Terror itself.

Enabling Acts Of 1876 And 1893, Kathleen Ferris

Archive of CNMS Site

Several attempts at statehood marked the late nineteenth century. While politicians in both Washington and New Mexico worked to get the territory admitted, success proved elusive.

Racism As An Impediment To Statehood, Kathleen Ferris

Archive of CNMS Site

New Mexico spent an unusually long period as a territory, 62 years in total. For comparison, consider the length of territorial status for other states in the West: Colorado-15 years, Nevada-14 years, Utah-46 years, Montana-25 years, Wyoming-22 years, Idaho-44 years. A small population and an underdeveloped economy were two common reasons given at the time to explain the delay in admitting New Mexico. Although New Mexico did lag at times behind other territories in the growth of its population and economy, by the late nineteenth century it had more people and a larger economy than many older states had when …

Wall, William Ketchum, 1786-1853 (Sc 2475), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2475. Two letters from William K. Wall, a lawyer and state legislator, written from Frankfort, Kentucky. He writes of domestic matters, his health and churchgoing, and briefly of legislative affairs in Frankfort, Kentucky, including the prevalence of divorce bills and his successful application to obtain a pardon for a former client. He also comments, at times critically, on several individuals who may be his children.

"Truth Is Mighty & Will Eventually Prevail" Political Correctness, Neo-Confederates, And Robert E. Lee, Peter S. Carmichael

Civil War Institute Faculty Publications

Jefferson Davis sent Robert E. Lee an unusual note after the battle of Gettysburg. The dispatch did not contain any presidential recommendations or requests, only a clipped article from the Charleston Mercury criticizing Lee and his subordinates for failure in Pennsylvania. Why Davis sent this article is impossible to say, and Lee apparently was not interested in the president’s motivations. The General dismissed newspaper criticism of himself as “harmless,” but the Mercury’s condemnation of the army disturbed him. He considered the charges harmful to the cause, for his officers and soldiers were beyond reproach. Defeat, Lee insisted, was his responsibility …

The Politics Of A Gesture: The Impact Of Nixon’S Visit To China On Nixon’S Presidency, Samuel Tofte

Psi Sigma Siren

The importance of a symbolic gesture in diplomacy is very difficult to gauge. Diplomats often embark on social functions, meetings and trips to international countries in order to make contact with foreign diplomats and build relationships with governments. This is an effective means of forging political relationships, but how important is it when it comes to international policy and treaty negotiation? In short, it is extremely important in the process of policy-making, even without the tangible evidence showing its significance. Establishing contact can be the most difficult and arduous step in the road to good diplomatic relations, a fact that …

From Citoyenne To Amazon: The Evolution Of Women’S Political Self-Identity During The French Revolution, 1789 – 1793, Jacob Cassens

Psi Sigma Siren

French women were already presenting concerns and ideas into the charged atmosphere during the summoning of the Estates General before the Revolution of 1789 began. This meeting of members from all classes of French society was elected to present the citizens’ concerns to King Louis XVI. From their petition to the king on January 1, 1789 to the laws prohibiting women from gathering in clubs in 1793, women made themselves heard by many means, yet there was never any one particular group or movement which encompassed the entirety of the female population of France. Women’s involvement varied from impassioned pleas …

An International Reformer: Jessie Ackermann And American Progressivism., Michael Jonathan Sheffield

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Jessie Ackermann traveled throughout the world representing numerous American reformist organizations during the Progressive Era. Over the course of her lifetime, she promoted progressive reforms in foreign lands. This study examines Ackermann's career a progressive in an international context. The Jessie Ackermann Collection in the Archives of Appalachia holds various records that document Ackermann's career. Ackermann also authored three books during her lifetime. This thesis employs these primary materials along with other appropriate primary and secondary sources dealing with Ackermann and the Progressive Era. Several historical studies have surveyed Ackermann's work as a reformer; however, none have sought exclusively to …

The Direct And Indirect Contributions Of Western Missionaries To Korean Nationalism During The Late Choson And Early Japanese Annexation Periods 1884-1920., Walter Joseph Stucke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis sets out to demonstrate the role of Western missionaries and Korean Christians, especially Protestants, on Korean nationalism. The first significant introduction of Protestantism into Korea came in 1884. Within just over thirty years, the Protestant Church in Korea expanded and many of the nationalist leaders took active roles in the Korean nationalist movement against Japanese imperialism. This thesis consults both Western and Korean primary sources including period newspapers. Some of the Korean primary sources were translated from Korean into English and others were originally written in English by Koreans. Also consulted are many valuable secondary sources which help …

Fifty More Years? Reform And Modernisation Of The Oecd, Richard Woodward

Articles

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is a vital, if frequently unnoticed, cog in the machine of global governance. On the organisation's 50th anniversary, Richard Woodward assesses whether the OECD's reform programme can secure its future in a changing world.

A Small City's Big Scandal: Municipal Corruption, Progressive Reform, And The Grand Rapids, Michigan Water Scandal, 1900–1906, Brian F. Sarnacki

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

At the turn of century the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan began debating plans for expanding its water supply. These debates quickly spawned corrupt dealings, which in turn produced the city’s water scandal. The city’s first genuine scandal, the water scandal marks a turning point in the city’s history. The fact that the rather ordinary bribery scheme became a scandalous event reveals the city had adopted enough of the Progressive ethos to punish corruption. The water scandal stands as the tipping point of municipal politics in Grand Rapids between Gilded Age politics rooted in personal connections and Progressive politics centered …

America's First Secession: The Lost State Of Franklin Fell Just Short Of Admission To The Young Union, Kevin T. Barksdale

History Faculty Research

On Dec. 14, 1784, a small assemblage of Tennessee Valley leading men met at a rustic courthouse in Jonesboro, N.C. under a darkening cloud of political uncertainty, 28 western political and economic leaders voted overwhelmingly to declare their communities' independence from their parent state of North Carolina and to form America's 14th state- Franklin.

A.L. Burruss: The Life Of A Georgia Politician And A Man To Trust, Margaret Walters

KSU Press Legacy Project

A. L. Burruss was an extraordinary, compassionate, self-effacing, and personable man. He was the eldest of eleven children and son of a painter and carpenter whose family moved to Smyrna, Georgia in the 1930s. After high school, the Navy trained him as a refrigeration machinist and the imaginative and hard-working Burruss used his skills to start a refrigeration business. Eventually Burruss bought out one of his clients-a partner with Tim Top Poultry in Marietta, Georgia-and helped the company to become immensely successful. Despite his prosperity, Burruss ran for political office as "a way to help others" and achieved political prominence …

La Follette’S Autobiography: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, And The Glorious, Nancy Unger

History

La Follette's Autobiography: A Personal Narrative of Political Experiences is a remarkable primary document of the Progressive Era. Originally published in 1913, it remains in print today and has the dubious honor of being one of Richard Nixon's three favorite books. It illuminates the crucial role that La Follette's home state of Wisconsin played in molding La Follette as a man and as a politician, thereby influencing his national progressive agenda; but it also reveals much more.

Tracking The Language Of Time And Space, 1945-2008, Roderick P. Hart, Elvin T. Lim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article explores how contemporary historians can avail themselves of quantitative approaches to examine how elusive concepts like ‘time’ and ‘space’ have been used in the public domain. By making use of specifically designed programs, historians can use digital tools to harness an unprecedented mass of information. This is a particularly important methodological innovation at a time of rapidly expanding data: news, speeches, and commentary are available first electronically, and they are available on countless sites in an unprecedented array of formats. Mastering these sources digitally is not only imperative for the contemporary historian; it also provides essential source material …

“We Will Hold Our Land:” The Cherokee People In Postrevolutionary North America, 1781-1792, Kevin T. Barksdale

History Faculty Research

In June of 1783, Spain’s newly-appointed Governor of Louisiana Estevan Miro convened a conference of southeastern Indians in Pensacola with representatives from the dominant regional Amerindian groups, including the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creeks in attendance. Among the attendees at the West Florida congress was a small contingent of Chickamauga Cherokee, led by their principal chief Dragging Canoe. During the parlay, Governor Miro implored the Indians to “not be afraid of the Americans,” promised to provide guns and ammunition in their ongoing efforts to prevent the further loss of their lands, and urged them to “continue to fight against American” westerners.

The Collapse Of Yugoslavia And The Bosnian War: The Impact Of International Intervention In A Regional Conflict, Jeffrey Scott Passage

Master's Theses

This thesis examines the role of international intervention in the area formerly known as Yugoslavia during its collapse in the first half of the 1990s (1991-1995). The Cold War had just ended, and the United Nations (UN), NATO, and the nations they represented were reevaluating their roles in a world without competition between two superpowers. The collapse of Yugoslavia and ensuing civil war presented these international bodies with an opportunity to intervene and show that they were ready to take charge in future conflicts in pursuing and achieving peace. However, what followed revealed them to be short-sighted and ill-prepared for …

A Position Of Strength: Arms Dealing As Diplomacy Under The Reagan Administration, William D. Watson

Masters Theses

My thesis is an examination of the Cold War during the 1980s, with a focus on arms dealing and diplomacy under President Ronald Reagan from 1981-1989. I chose to write about three specific case studies based on the unique intersections of American diplomatic goals in relation to geography, the sophistication of weapons technology involved, and geopolitical considerations. The purpose of this thesis is to explain why and how the Reagan administration was able to carry out three separate arms deals, and in turn, how those deals fit into the broader, global Cold War between the United States and the Soviet …

No Sure Victory: Measuring U.S. Army Effectiveness And Progress In The Vietnam War, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Conventional wisdom holds that the US Army in Vietnam, thrust into an unconventional war where occupying terrain was a meaningless measure of success, depended on body counts as its sole measure of military progress. In No Sure Victory, Army officer and historian Gregory Daddis looks far deeper into the Army's techniques for measuring military success and presents a much more complicated-and disturbing-account of the American misadventure in Indochina.

Hechiceras E Inquisidores: The Relative Lack Of Severity Of Witchcraft Prosecution Among Spanish Imperial Territories, Jeffrey Michael Mastrianni

Honors Scholar Theses

This paper examines the social, cultural, political, and judiciary motivations behind the prosecution of witchcraft in the Spanish Empire between the years of 1492 and 1643. Included as background material are introductions to witchcraft, the history of the Empire, and the behaviors of the Spanish Inquisition. The paper attempts to illustrate the fact that witchcraft prosecution was neither severe nor overly violent in the Empire, and that each of the four major regions of the Empire (Spain proper, the Netherlands, Italy, and the Viceroyalty of Mexico) witnessed a steady and early decline of witchcraft prosecutions, albeit for different reasons. It …

The Crucible Of Texas Politics: An Analysis Of The United States Senatorial Primaries Of 1941 And 1948., Ginger Mcgoldrick Spradlin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Lyndon Johnson's opponents used the outcome of his 1948 senatorial bid to demonstrate his dishonesty. This win by eighty-seven disputed votes gave him the derogatory title, "Landslide Lyndon." Johnson's initial senate campaigns in 1941 and 1948 are examined for Texas Politics as usual.

Upon Senator Sheppard's death in 1937, a special election precipitated with Martin Dies, Gerald Mann, Lyndon Johnson, and W. Lee O'Daniel as the candidates. Although this election has not received the notoriety of 1948, it exemplifies Texas Politics as usual where thousands of manipulated votes resulted in O'Daniel's late victory.

Johnson's next race for the senate came …

The Nationalism Of Joachim Meyer: An Analysis Of German Pride In His Fighting Manual Of 1570., William Charles Adamson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work addresses the nationalistic elements in the 1570 work Kunst des Fechtens by Joachim Meyer of Strassburg. Meyer's teachings on the longsword are attached to the Swabian Johannes Liechtenauer and then transferred to the Italian rapier thus establishing Meyer as less concerned with nationalist purity as others of his century. His teachings are examined for their pleadings for moral conduct and the preservation of martial studies to the youth of Germany and the young Duke of Bavaria, Johann Casimir. Using modern examples alongside Meyer's writings the case is also made for the integration of nationalist sentiments, moral and ethical …

Federalists Vs. Republicans: The Nature Of Man In A Republic 1787-1800, Benjamin J. Barlowe

Senior Honors Theses

During the early years of the American Republic known as the Federalist Era (1787-1800), a conflict arose which led to America’s first formal political parties and the formation of the two-party system. The parties’ disagreements, characterized most succinctly by the exchanges between the two party leaders, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, involved some of the most basic ideology of the American experiment. The conflicts of the Jeffersonian Republicans and the Hamiltonian Federalists set the precedent of the nature of the political atmosphere of the United States to this day.

This thesis examines the basic viewpoint of the two parties in …

The Responsibility Of Intellectuals: Chomsky And Student Opposition To The Vietnam War, Matthew S. Krane

Young Historians Conference

The paper offers a critical perspective on the relevance of noted public intellectual Noam Chomsky’s work to American opposition to the Vietnam War. It gives a brief background of the war and United States policies in order to set the stage for an analysis of Chomsky’s critique. Then, the paper situates Chomsky’s main work of dissent, The Responsibility of Intellectuals, in the proper chronological and historical context. Two paradigms of protest by intellectuals and students are noted: logical and reactionary. In Vietnam, it is argued that the former was rooted in the latter, which no intellectual justification touched; therefore, while …

Book Reviews, Dick Jonsson, Bizeck Jube Phiri, Gear M. Kajoba, Obrian Ndhlovu

Zambia Social Science Journal

Reviews of:

Why Africa is Poor – and what Africans can do about it. By Greg Mills;

Living the End of Empire: Politics and Society in Late Colonial Zambia. Edited by Jan-Bart Gewald, Marja Hinfelaar and Giacomo Macola;

Left Behind: Rural Zambia in the Third Republic. By Jeremy Gould;

Gender Budgeting as a Tool for Poverty Reduction. By The African Capacity Building Foundation. African Capacity Building Foundation

Race And Justice In Mississippi's Central Piney Woods, 1940-2010, Patricia Michelle Buzard-Boyett

Dissertations

“Race and Justice in Mississippi’s Central Piney Woods, 1940-2010,” examines the black freedom struggle in Jones and Forrest counties. The writer concludes that more than any other region of Mississippi, the Central Piney Woods became the pivotal theater in the war for racial justice because the intensity of its racial oppression combined with its unparalleled suffrage campaign, and watershed street protests forced a federal alliance, instigated landmark court rulings, and generated black political victories that lay the foundations for a more equitable racial order. To obtain a broader perspective on the forces that transformed racial justice over time, this community …

Development For The Past, Present, And Future: Defining And Measuring Sustainable Development, Max Cantor

Senior Honors Projects

In 1987, the United Nations released the Brundtland Report, which defined sustainable development as “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” While this definition provides a relatively stable theoretical base from which development economists and political scientists can begin to tackle issues surrounding sustainable development, the inherently amorphous nature of this definition has also created a fair amount of ambiguity in both the economic literature surrounding sustainable development and the subsequent attempts by economists to measure it.

Historically, those interested in the science of development have typically …

"The Africans Have Taken Arkansas": Political Activities Of African-American Members Of The Arkansas Legislature, 1868-73, Christopher Warren Branam

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

African-American lawmakers in the Arkansas General Assembly during Radical Reconstruction became politically active at a time when the legislature was addressing the most basic issues of public life, such as creating the infrastructure of public education and transportation in the state. They were actively engaged in the work of the legislature. Between 1868 and 1873, they introduced bills that eventually became laws. Arkansas passed two civil rights laws at the behest of African-American lawmakers. Education, law and order, and economic development--issues that reflected the southern Republican agenda that dominated the state's politics between 1868 and Democratic Redemption in 1874--also drew …

1983: The Most Dangerous Year, Andrew R. Garland

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A series of otherwise unrelated events culminated to make 1983 the most dangerous year the world has ever known, with the United States and the Soviet Union even closer to war than during the much more well-known events of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The crisis of 1983 arose from a sequence of accidents, misunderstandings, and mistakes. From highly publicized events such as President Ronald Reagan‘s application of morality to foreign policy to the Soviet Union‘s attempt to discover NATO‘s secret attack plans, an extraordinary confluence of events brought the two superpowers closer to nuclear exchange than is commonly believed. …

“Change” In The 2008 Presidential Campaign: A Study In Rhetorical Definition, Graciela Saez Kleriga

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Every election cycle, the major party candidates accept a nomination for the presidency and launch the general campaign. These rhetors not only weave a narrative about themselves as qualified candidates; they also forward an argument about how the public should choose between two candidates. In particular, the 2008 presidential campaign's central question asked Americans about the type of change the nation should undertake. By tracing the definitional arguments utilized at the outset of the general election, this project analyzes how Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain utilized this desire for "Change" as a strategic theme.