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Revolution and Resistance: Moral Revolution, Military Might, and the End of Empire
by David TuckerIn this provocative history, David Tucker argues that "irregular warfare";¢;‚¬;€?including terrorism, guerrilla warfare, and other insurgency tactics;¢;‚¬;€?is intimately linked to the rise and decline of Euro-American empire around the globe. Tracing the evolution of resistance warfare from the age of the conquistadors through the United States;€™ recent ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, Revolution and Resistance demonstrates that contemporary conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia are simply the final stages in the unraveling of Euro-American imperialism. Tucker explores why it was so difficult for indigenous people and states to resist imperial power, which possessed superior military technology and was driven by a curious moral imperative to conquer. He also explains how native populations eventually learned to fight back by successfully combining guerrilla warfare with political warfare. By exploiting certain Euro-American weaknesses;¢;‚¬;€?above all, the instability created by the fading rationale for empire;¢;‚¬;€?insurgents were able to subvert imperialism by using its own ideologies against it. Tucker also examines how the development of free trade and world finance began to undermine the need for direct political control of foreign territory.Touching on Pontiac;€™s Rebellion of 1763, Abd el-Kader;€™s jihad in nineteenth-century Algeria, the national liberation movements that arose in twentieth-century Palestine, Vietnam, and Ireland, and contemporary terrorist activity, Revolution and Resistance shows how changing means have been used to wage the same struggle. Emphasizing moral rather than economic or technological explanations for the rise and fall of Euro-American imperialism, this concise, comprehensive book is required reading for anyone seeking to understand the character of contemporary conflict.
The Revolutionary War Lives and Letters of Lucy and Henry Knox
by Phillip HamiltonIn 1774, Boston bookseller Henry Knox married Lucy Waldo Flucker, the daughter of a prominent Tory family. Although Lucy;€™s father was the third-ranking colonial official in Massachusetts, the couple joined the American cause after the Battles of Lexington and Concord and fled British-occupied Boston. Knox became a soldier in the Continental Army, where he served until the war;€™s end as Washington;€™s artillery commander.While Henry is well known to historians, his private life and marriage to Lucy remain largely unexplored. Phillip Hamilton tells the fascinating story of the Knoxes;€™ relationship amid the upheavals of war. Like John and Abigail Adams, the Knoxes were often separated by the revolution and spent much of their time writing to one another. They penned nearly 200 letters during the conflict, more than half of which are reproduced and annotated for this volume.This correspondence;¢;‚¬;€?one of the few collections of letters between revolutionary-era spouses that spans the entire war;¢;‚¬;€?provides a remarkable window into the couple;€™s marriage. Placed at the center of great events, struggling to cope with a momentous conflict, and attempting to preserve their marriage and family, the Knoxes wrote to each other in a direct and accessible manner as they negotiated shifts in gender and power relations. Working together, Henry and Lucy maintained their household and protected their property, raised and educated their children, and emotionally adjusted to other dramatic changes within their family, including a total break between Lucy and her Tory family. Combining original epistles with Hamilton;€™s introductory essays, The Revolutionary War Lives and Letters of Lucy and Henry Knox offers important insights into how this relatable and highly individual couple overcame the war;€™s challenges.
The Revolutionary War Lives and Letters of Lucy and Henry Knox
by Phillip HamiltonIn 1774, Boston bookseller Henry Knox married Lucy Waldo Flucker, the daughter of a prominent Tory family. Although Lucy;€™s father was the third-ranking colonial official in Massachusetts, the couple joined the American cause after the Battles of Lexington and Concord and fled British-occupied Boston. Knox became a soldier in the Continental Army, where he served until the war;€™s end as Washington;€™s artillery commander.While Henry is well known to historians, his private life and marriage to Lucy remain largely unexplored. Phillip Hamilton tells the fascinating story of the Knoxes;€™ relationship amid the upheavals of war. Like John and Abigail Adams, the Knoxes were often separated by the revolution and spent much of their time writing to one another. They penned nearly 200 letters during the conflict, more than half of which are reproduced and annotated for this volume.This correspondence;¢;‚¬;€?one of the few collections of letters between revolutionary-era spouses that spans the entire war;¢;‚¬;€?provides a remarkable window into the couple;€™s marriage. Placed at the center of great events, struggling to cope with a momentous conflict, and attempting to preserve their marriage and family, the Knoxes wrote to each other in a direct and accessible manner as they negotiated shifts in gender and power relations. Working together, Henry and Lucy maintained their household and protected their property, raised and educated their children, and emotionally adjusted to other dramatic changes within their family, including a total break between Lucy and her Tory family. Combining original epistles with Hamilton;€™s introductory essays, The Revolutionary War Lives and Letters of Lucy and Henry Knox offers important insights into how this relatable and highly individual couple overcame the war;€™s challenges.
The Rise and Decline of Faculty Governance: Professionalization and the Modern American University
by Larry G. GerberThe Rise and Decline of Faculty Governance is the first history of shared governance in American higher education. Drawing on archival materials and extensive published sources, Larry G. Gerber shows how the professionalization of college teachers coincided with the rise of the modern university in the late nineteenth century and was the principal justification for granting teachers power in making educational decisions. In the twentieth century, the efforts of these governing faculties were directly responsible for molding American higher education into the finest academic system in the world. In recent decades, however, the growing complexity of "multiversities" and the application of business strategies to manage these institutions threatened the concept of faculty governance. Faculty shifted from being autonomous professionals to being "employees." The casualization of the academic labor market, Gerber argues, threatens to erode the quality of universities. As more faculty become contingent employees, rather than tenured career professionals enjoying both job security and intellectual autonomy, universities become factories in the knowledge economy. In addition to tracing the evolution of faculty decision making, this historical narrative provides readers with an important perspective on contemporary debates about the best way to manage America’s colleges and universities. Gerber also reflects on whether American colleges and universities will be able to retain their position of global preeminence in an increasingly market-driven environment, given that the system of governance that helped make their success possible has been fundamentally altered.
The Rise and Decline of Faculty Governance: Professionalization and the Modern American University
by Larry G. GerberThe Rise and Decline of Faculty Governance is the first history of shared governance in American higher education. Drawing on archival materials and extensive published sources, Larry G. Gerber shows how the professionalization of college teachers coincided with the rise of the modern university in the late nineteenth century and was the principal justification for granting teachers power in making educational decisions. In the twentieth century, the efforts of these governing faculties were directly responsible for molding American higher education into the finest academic system in the world. In recent decades, however, the growing complexity of "multiversities" and the application of business strategies to manage these institutions threatened the concept of faculty governance. Faculty shifted from being autonomous professionals to being "employees." The casualization of the academic labor market, Gerber argues, threatens to erode the quality of universities. As more faculty become contingent employees, rather than tenured career professionals enjoying both job security and intellectual autonomy, universities become factories in the knowledge economy. In addition to tracing the evolution of faculty decision making, this historical narrative provides readers with an important perspective on contemporary debates about the best way to manage America’s colleges and universities. Gerber also reflects on whether American colleges and universities will be able to retain their position of global preeminence in an increasingly market-driven environment, given that the system of governance that helped make their success possible has been fundamentally altered.
Roman Literary Culture: From Plautus to Macrobius (Ancient Society and History)
by Elaine FanthamScholars of ancient literature have often focused on the works and lives of major authors rather than on such questions as how these works were produced and who read them. In Roman Literary Culture, Elaine Fantham fills that void by examining the changing social and historical context of literary production in ancient Rome and its empire. Fantham’s first edition discussed the habits of Roman readers and developments in their means of access to literature, from booksellers and copyists to pirated publications and libraries. She examines the issues of patronage and the utility of literature and shows how the constraints of the physical object itself—the ancient "book"—influenced the practice of both reading and writing. She also explores the ways in which ancient criticism and critical attitudes reflected cultural assumptions of the time.In this second edition, Fantham expands the scope of her study. In the new first chapter, she examines the beginning of Roman literature—more than a century before the critical studies of Cicero and Varro. She discusses broader entertainment culture, which consisted of live performances of comedy and tragedy as well as oral presentations of the epic. A new final chapter looks at Pagan and Christian literature from the third to fifth centuries, showing how this period in Roman literature reflected its foundations in the literary culture of the late republic and Augustan age. This edition also includes a new preface and an updated bibliography.
Romantic Interactions: Social Being and the Turns of Literary Action
by Susan J. WolfsonIn Romantic Interactions, Susan J. Wolfson examines how interaction with other authors—whether on the bookshelf, in the embodied company of someone else writing, or in relation to literary celebrity—shaped the work of some of the best-known (and less well-known) writers in the English language. Working across the arc of Long Romanticism, from the 1780s to the 1840s, this lively study involves writing by women and men, in poetry and prose. Combining careful readings with sophisticated literary, historical, and cultural criticism, Wolfson reveals how various writers came to define themselves as "author." The story unfolds not only in deft textual analyses but also by provocatively placing writers in dialogue with what they were reading, with one another, and with the community of readers (and writers) their writings helped bring into being: Mary Wollstonecraft and Charlotte Smith in the Revolution-roiled 1790s; William Wordsworth and Dorothy Wordsworth in the society of the Lake District; Lord Byron, a magnet for writers everywhere, inspired, troubled, but always arrested by what he (and his scandal-ridden celebrity) represented. This fresh, informative account of key writers, important texts, and complex cultural currents promises keen interest for students and scholars, literary critics, and cultural historians.
Rome: A Living Portrait of an Ancient City (Ancient Society and History)
by Stephen L. DysonStephen L. Dyson has spent a lifetime studying and teaching the history of ancient Rome. That unparalleled knowledge is reflected in his magisterial overview of the Eternal City.Rather than look only at the physical development of the city—its buildings, monuments, and urban spaces—Dyson also explores its social, economic, and cultural histories. This unique approach situates Rome against a background of comparative urban history and theory, allowing Dyson to examine the dynamic society that once thrived there. In his personal effort to reconstruct the city, Dyson populates its streets with the hurried politicians, hawking vendors, and animated students that once lived, worked, and studied there, bringing the ancient city to life for a new generation of students and tourists. Dyson follows Rome as it developed between the third century BC and the fourth century AD, dividing the great megalopolis into distinct neighborhoods and locales. He shows how these communities, each with its own unique customs and colorful inhabitants, eventually grew into the great imperial capital of the Italian Empire. Dyson integrates the full range of sources available—literary, artistic, epigraphic, and archaeological—to create a comprehensive history of the monumental city. In doing so, he offers a dramatic picture of a complex and changing urban center that, despite its flaws, flourished for centuries.
The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer: And the Birth of the Modern Arms Race (Johns Hopkins Nuclear History and Contemporary Affairs)
by Priscilla J. McMillanOn April 12, 1954, the nation was astonished to learn that J. Robert Oppenheimer was facing charges of violating national security. Could the director of the Manhattan Project, the visionary who led the effort to build the atom bomb, really be a traitor? In this riveting book, bestselling author Priscilla J. McMillan draws on newly declassified U.S. government documents and materials from Russia, as well as in-depth interviews, to expose for the first time the conspiracy that destroyed one of America;€™s most illustrious scientists.McMillan recreates the fraught years from 1949 to 1955 when Oppenheimer and a group of liberal scientists tried to head off the cabal of hard-line air force officials, anti-Communist politicians, and rival scientists, including physicist Edward Teller, who were trying to seize control of U.S. policy and build ever more deadly nuclear weapons. Retelling the story of Oppenheimer;€™s trial, which took place in utmost secrecy, she describes how the government made up its own rules and violated many protections of the rule of law. She also argues that the effort to discredit Oppenheimer, occurring at the height of the McCarthy era and sanctioned by a misinformed President Eisenhower, was a watershed in the Cold War, poisoning American politics for decades and creating dangers that haunt us today.A chilling tale of McCarthy-era machinations, this groundbreaking page-turner rewrites the history of the Cold War.
Saints and Strangers: New England in British North America (Regional Perspectives on Early America)
by Joseph A. ConfortiIn the first general history of colonial New England to be published in over twenty-five years, Joseph A. Conforti synthesizes current and classic scholarship to explore how Puritan saints and "strangers" to Puritanism participated in the making of colonial New England. Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop's famous description of New England as a "city upon a hill" has tended to reduce the region's history to an exclusively Pilgrim-Puritan drama, a world of narrow-minded founders, the First Thanksgiving, steepled churches, and the Salem witchcraft trials.In a concise volume aimed at general readers and college students as well as historians, Conforti shows that New England was neither as Puritan nor as insular as most familiar stories imply. As the region evolved into British America's preeminent maritime region, the Atlantic Ocean served as a highway of commercial and cultural encounter, connecting white English settlers to different races and religious communities of the transatlantic world. The Puritan elect—but also Natives, African slaves, and non-Puritan white settlers—became active participants in the creation of colonial New England. Conforti discusses how these subcommunities of white, red, and black strangers to Protestant piety retained their own cultures, coexisted, and even thrived within and beyond the domains of Puritan settlement, creating tensions and pressure points in the later development of early America.
Scholars, Policymakers, and International Affairs: Finding Common Cause
by Abraham F. Lowenthal Mariano E. BertucciScholars, Policymakers, and International Affairs shows how to build mutually beneficial connections between the worlds of ideas and action, analysis and policy. Drawing on contributions from top international scholars with policy experience in the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, and Latin America, as well as senior policymakers throughout the Americas, Abraham F. Lowenthal and Mariano E. Bertucci make the case that scholars can both strengthen their research and contribute to improved policies while protecting academia from the risks of active participation in the policy process.Many scholars believe that policymakers are more interested in processes and outcomes than in understanding causality. Many policymakers believe that scholars are absorbed in abstract and self-referential debates and that they are primarily interested in crafting theories (and impressing other scholars) rather than developing solutions to pressing policy issues.The contributors to this book confront this gap head-on. They do not deny the obstacles to fruitful interaction between scholars and policymakers, but, drawing on their own experience, discuss how these obstacles can be and have been overcome. They present case studies that illustrate how scholars have helped reduce income inequality, promote democratic governance, improve gender equity, target international financial sanctions, manage the Mexico–U.S. border, and enhance inter-American cooperation. These success stories are balanced by studies on why academic analysts have failed to achieve much positive impact on counternarcotics and citizen security policies. The editors’ astute conclusion identifies best practices and provides concrete recommendations to government agencies, international institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and funding sources, as well as to senior university officials, academic departments and centers, think tanks, established scholars, junior faculty, and graduate students.Clearly written and thoughtfully organized, this innovative book provides analytic insights and practical wisdom for those who want to understand how to build more effective connections between the worlds of thought and action.
Scholars, Policymakers, and International Affairs: Finding Common Cause
by Abraham F. Lowenthal Mariano E. BertucciScholars, Policymakers, and International Affairs shows how to build mutually beneficial connections between the worlds of ideas and action, analysis and policy. Drawing on contributions from top international scholars with policy experience in the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, and Latin America, as well as senior policymakers throughout the Americas, Abraham F. Lowenthal and Mariano E. Bertucci make the case that scholars can both strengthen their research and contribute to improved policies while protecting academia from the risks of active participation in the policy process.Many scholars believe that policymakers are more interested in processes and outcomes than in understanding causality. Many policymakers believe that scholars are absorbed in abstract and self-referential debates and that they are primarily interested in crafting theories (and impressing other scholars) rather than developing solutions to pressing policy issues.The contributors to this book confront this gap head-on. They do not deny the obstacles to fruitful interaction between scholars and policymakers, but, drawing on their own experience, discuss how these obstacles can be and have been overcome. They present case studies that illustrate how scholars have helped reduce income inequality, promote democratic governance, improve gender equity, target international financial sanctions, manage the Mexico–U.S. border, and enhance inter-American cooperation. These success stories are balanced by studies on why academic analysts have failed to achieve much positive impact on counternarcotics and citizen security policies. The editors’ astute conclusion identifies best practices and provides concrete recommendations to government agencies, international institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and funding sources, as well as to senior university officials, academic departments and centers, think tanks, established scholars, junior faculty, and graduate students.Clearly written and thoughtfully organized, this innovative book provides analytic insights and practical wisdom for those who want to understand how to build more effective connections between the worlds of thought and action.
Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction
by Gary B. FerngrenSince its publication in 2002, Science and Religion has proven to be a widely admired survey of the complex relationship of Western religious traditions to science from the beginning of the Christian era to the late twentieth century. In the second edition, eleven new essays expand the scope and enhance the analysis of this enduringly popular book.Tracing the rise of science from its birth in the medieval West through the scientific revolution, the contributors here assess historical changes in scientific understanding brought about by transformations in physics, anthropology, and the neurosciences and major shifts marked by the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and others. In seeking to appreciate the intersection of scientific discovery and the responses of religious groups, contributors also explore the theological implications of contemporary science and evaluate approaches such as the Bible in science and the modern synthesis in evolution, which are at the center of debates in the historiography, understanding, and application of science.The second edition provides chapters that have been revised to reflect current scholarship along with new chapters that bring fresh perspectives on a diverse range of topics, including new scientific approaches and disciplines and non-Christian traditions such as Judaism, Islam, Asiatic religions, and atheism. This indispensible classroom guide is now more useful than ever before.Contributors: Richard J. Blackwell, Peter J. Bowler, John Hedley Brooke, Glen M. Cooper, Edward B. Davis, Alnoor Dhanani, Diarmid A. Finnegan, Noah Efron, Owen Gingerich, Edward Grant, Steven J. Harris, Matthew S. Hedstrom, John Henry, Peter M. Hess, Edward J. Larsen, Timothy Larson, David C. Lindberg, David N. Livingstone, Craig Martin, Craig Sean McConnell, James Moore, Joshua M. Moritz, Mark A. Noll, Ronald L. Numbers, Richard Olson, Christopher M. Rios, Nicolaas A. Rupke, Michael H. Shank, Stephen David Snobelen, John Stenhouse, Peter J. Susalla, Mariusz Tabaczek, Alan C. Weissenbacher, Stephen P. Weldon, and Tomoko Yoshida
Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction
by Gary B. FerngrenSince its publication in 2002, Science and Religion has proven to be a widely admired survey of the complex relationship of Western religious traditions to science from the beginning of the Christian era to the late twentieth century. In the second edition, eleven new essays expand the scope and enhance the analysis of this enduringly popular book.Tracing the rise of science from its birth in the medieval West through the scientific revolution, the contributors here assess historical changes in scientific understanding brought about by transformations in physics, anthropology, and the neurosciences and major shifts marked by the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and others. In seeking to appreciate the intersection of scientific discovery and the responses of religious groups, contributors also explore the theological implications of contemporary science and evaluate approaches such as the Bible in science and the modern synthesis in evolution, which are at the center of debates in the historiography, understanding, and application of science.The second edition provides chapters that have been revised to reflect current scholarship along with new chapters that bring fresh perspectives on a diverse range of topics, including new scientific approaches and disciplines and non-Christian traditions such as Judaism, Islam, Asiatic religions, and atheism. This indispensible classroom guide is now more useful than ever before.Contributors: Richard J. Blackwell, Peter J. Bowler, John Hedley Brooke, Glen M. Cooper, Edward B. Davis, Alnoor Dhanani, Diarmid A. Finnegan, Noah Efron, Owen Gingerich, Edward Grant, Steven J. Harris, Matthew S. Hedstrom, John Henry, Peter M. Hess, Edward J. Larsen, Timothy Larson, David C. Lindberg, David N. Livingstone, Craig Martin, Craig Sean McConnell, James Moore, Joshua M. Moritz, Mark A. Noll, Ronald L. Numbers, Richard Olson, Christopher M. Rios, Nicolaas A. Rupke, Michael H. Shank, Stephen David Snobelen, John Stenhouse, Peter J. Susalla, Mariusz Tabaczek, Alan C. Weissenbacher, Stephen P. Weldon, and Tomoko Yoshida
Secession Winter: When the Union Fell Apart (The Marcus Cunliffe Lecture Series)
by William L. Barney Robert J. Cook Elizabeth R. VaronPoliticians and opinion leaders on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line struggled to formulate coherent responses to the secession of the deep South states. The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in mid-April 1861 triggered civil war and the loss of four upper South states from the Union. The essays by three senior historians in Secession Winter explore the robust debates that preceded these events.For five months in the winter of 1860–1861, Americans did not know for certain that civil war was upon them. Some hoped for a compromise; others wanted a fight. Many struggled to understand what was happening to their country. Robert J. Cook, William L. Barney, and Elizabeth R. Varon take approaches to this period that combine political, economic, and social-cultural lines of analysis. Rather than focus on whether civil war was inevitable, they look at the political process of secession and find multiple internal divisions—political parties, whites and nonwhites, elites and masses, men and women. Even individual northerners and southerners suffered inner conflicts. The authors include the voices of Unionists and Whig party moderates who had much to lose and upcountry folk who owned no slaves and did not particularly like those who did. Barney contends that white southerners were driven to secede by anxiety and guilt over slavery. Varon takes a new look at Robert E. Lee's decision to join the Confederacy. Cook argues that both northern and southern politicians claimed the rightness of their cause by constructing selective narratives of historical grievances. Secession Winter explores the fact of contingency and reminds readers and students that nothing was foreordained.
Secret Histories: Reading Twentieth-Century American Literature
by David WyattSecret Histories claims that the history of the nation is hidden—in plain sight—within the pages of twentieth-century American literature. David Wyatt argues that the nation's fiction and nonfiction expose a "secret history" that cuts beneath the "straight histories" of our official accounts. And it does so by revealing personal stories of love, work, family, war, and interracial romance as they were lived out across the decades of the twentieth century. Wyatt reads authors both familiar and neglected, examining "double consciousness" in the post–Civil War era through works by Charles W. Chesnutt, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Booker T. Washington. He reveals aspects of the Depression in the fiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Anzia Yezierska, and John Steinbeck. Period by period, Wyatt's nuanced readings recover the felt sense of life as it was lived, opening surprising dimensions of the critical issues of a given time. The rise of the women's movement, for example, is revivified in new appraisals of works by Eudora Welty, Ann Petry, and Mary McCarthy.Running through the examination of individual works and times is Wyatt's argument about reading itself. Reading is not a passive activity but an empathetic act of cocreation, what Faulkner calls "overpassing to love." Empathetic reading recognizes and relives the emotional, cultural, and political dimensions of an individual and collective past. And discovering a usable American past, as Wyatt shows, enables us to confront the urgencies of our present moment.
The Secret History of the Jersey Devil: How Quakers, Hucksters, and Benjamin Franklin Created a Monster
by Brian Regal Frank J. EspositoLegend has it that in 1735 a witch named Mother Leeds gave birth to a horrifying monster;¢;‚¬;€?a deformed flying horse with glowing red eyes;¢;‚¬;€?that flew up the chimney of her New Jersey home and disappeared into the Pine Barrens. Ever since, this nightmarish beast has haunted those woods, presaging catastrophe and frightening innocent passersby;¢;‚¬;€?or so the story goes. In The Secret History of the Jersey Devil, Brian Regal and Frank J. Esposito examine the genesis of this popular myth, which is one of the oldest monster legends in the United States.According to Regal and Esposito, everything you think you know about the Jersey Devil is wrong. The real story of the Jersey Devil's birth is far more interesting, complex, and important than most people;¢;‚¬;€?believers and skeptics alike;¢;‚¬;€?realize. Leaving the Pine Barrens, Regal and Esposito turn instead to the varied political and cultural roots of the Devil's creation. Fascinating and lively, this book finds the origins of New Jersey's favorite monster not in witchcraft or an unnatural liaison between woman and devil but in the bare-knuckled political fights and religious upheavals of colonial America. A product of innuendo and rumor, as well as scandal and media hype, the Jersey Devil enjoys a rich history involving land grabs, astrological predictions, mermaids and dinosaur bones, sideshows, Napoleon Bonaparte's brother, a cross-dressing royal governor, and Founding Father Benjamin Franklin.
The Secret History of the Jersey Devil: How Quakers, Hucksters, and Benjamin Franklin Created a Monster
by Brian Regal Frank J. EspositoLegend has it that in 1735 a witch named Mother Leeds gave birth to a horrifying monster;¢;‚¬;€?a deformed flying horse with glowing red eyes;¢;‚¬;€?that flew up the chimney of her New Jersey home and disappeared into the Pine Barrens. Ever since, this nightmarish beast has haunted those woods, presaging catastrophe and frightening innocent passersby;¢;‚¬;€?or so the story goes. In The Secret History of the Jersey Devil, Brian Regal and Frank J. Esposito examine the genesis of this popular myth, which is one of the oldest monster legends in the United States.According to Regal and Esposito, everything you think you know about the Jersey Devil is wrong. The real story of the Jersey Devil's birth is far more interesting, complex, and important than most people;¢;‚¬;€?believers and skeptics alike;¢;‚¬;€?realize. Leaving the Pine Barrens, Regal and Esposito turn instead to the varied political and cultural roots of the Devil's creation. Fascinating and lively, this book finds the origins of New Jersey's favorite monster not in witchcraft or an unnatural liaison between woman and devil but in the bare-knuckled political fights and religious upheavals of colonial America. A product of innuendo and rumor, as well as scandal and media hype, the Jersey Devil enjoys a rich history involving land grabs, astrological predictions, mermaids and dinosaur bones, sideshows, Napoleon Bonaparte's brother, a cross-dressing royal governor, and Founding Father Benjamin Franklin.
Selling Intervention and War: The Presidency, the Media, and the American Public
by Jon WesternSelling Intervention and War examines the competition among foreign policy elites in the executive branch and Congress in winning the hearts and minds of the American public for military intervention. The book studies how the president and his supporters organize campaigns for public support for military action. According to Jon Western, the outcome depends upon information and propaganda advantages, media support or opposition, the degree of cohesion within the executive branch, and the duration of the crisis. Also important is whether the American public believes that military threat is credible and victory plausible. Not all such campaigns to win public support are successful; in some instances, foreign policy elites and the president and his advisors have to back off. Western uses several modern conflicts, including the current one in Iraq, as case studies to illustrate the methods involved in selling intervention and war to the American public: the decision not to intervene in French Indochina in 1954, the choice to go into Lebanon in 1958, and the more recent military actions in Grenada, Somalia, Bosnia, and Iraq. Selling Intervention and War is essential reading for scholars and students of U.S. foreign policy, international security, the military and foreign policy, and international conflict.
Selling Intervention and War: The Presidency, the Media, and the American Public
by Jon WesternSelling Intervention and War examines the competition among foreign policy elites in the executive branch and Congress in winning the hearts and minds of the American public for military intervention. The book studies how the president and his supporters organize campaigns for public support for military action. According to Jon Western, the outcome depends upon information and propaganda advantages, media support or opposition, the degree of cohesion within the executive branch, and the duration of the crisis. Also important is whether the American public believes that military threat is credible and victory plausible. Not all such campaigns to win public support are successful; in some instances, foreign policy elites and the president and his advisors have to back off. Western uses several modern conflicts, including the current one in Iraq, as case studies to illustrate the methods involved in selling intervention and war to the American public: the decision not to intervene in French Indochina in 1954, the choice to go into Lebanon in 1958, and the more recent military actions in Grenada, Somalia, Bosnia, and Iraq. Selling Intervention and War is essential reading for scholars and students of U.S. foreign policy, international security, the military and foreign policy, and international conflict.
Selma;€™s Bloody Sunday: Protest, Voting Rights, and the Struggle for Racial Equality (Witness to History)
by Robert A. PrattOn Sunday afternoon, March 7, 1965, roughly six hundred peaceful demonstrators set out from Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in a double-file column to march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. Leading the march were Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Upon reaching Broad Street, the marchers turned left to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge that spanned the Alabama River. "When we reached the crest of the bridge," recalls John Lewis, "I stopped dead still. So did Hosea. There, facing us at the bottom of the other side, stood a sea of blue-helmeted, blue-uniformed Alabama state troopers, line after line of them, dozens of battle-ready lawmen stretched from one side of U.S. Highway 80 to the other. Behind them were several dozen more armed men;¢;‚¬;€?Sheriff Clark;€™s posse;¢;‚¬;€?some on horseback, all wearing khaki clothing, many carrying clubs the size of baseball bats."The violence and horror that was about to unfold at the foot of the bridge would forever mark the day as "Bloody Sunday," one of the pivotal moments of the civil rights movement. Alabama state troopers fell on the unarmed protestors as they crossed the bridge, beating and tear gassing them. In Selma;€™s Bloody Sunday, Robert A. Pratt offers a vivid account of that infamous day and the indelible triumph of black and white protest over white resistance. He explores how the march itself;¢;‚¬;€?and the 1965 Voting Rights Act that followed;¢;‚¬;€?represented a reaffirmation of the nation;€™s centuries-old declaration of universal equality and the fulfillment of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution.Selma;€™s Bloody Sunday offers a fresh interpretation of the ongoing struggle by African Americans to participate freely in America;€™s electoral democracy. Jumping forward to the present day, Pratt uses the march as a lens through which to examine disturbing recent debates concerning who should, and who should not, be allowed to vote. Drawing on archival materials, secondary sources, and eyewitness accounts of the brave men and women who marched, this gripping account offers a brief and nuanced narrative of this critical phase of the black freedom struggle.
Selma;€™s Bloody Sunday: Protest, Voting Rights, and the Struggle for Racial Equality (Witness to History)
by Robert A. PrattOn Sunday afternoon, March 7, 1965, roughly six hundred peaceful demonstrators set out from Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in a double-file column to march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. Leading the march were Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Upon reaching Broad Street, the marchers turned left to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge that spanned the Alabama River. "When we reached the crest of the bridge," recalls John Lewis, "I stopped dead still. So did Hosea. There, facing us at the bottom of the other side, stood a sea of blue-helmeted, blue-uniformed Alabama state troopers, line after line of them, dozens of battle-ready lawmen stretched from one side of U.S. Highway 80 to the other. Behind them were several dozen more armed men;¢;‚¬;€?Sheriff Clark;€™s posse;¢;‚¬;€?some on horseback, all wearing khaki clothing, many carrying clubs the size of baseball bats."The violence and horror that was about to unfold at the foot of the bridge would forever mark the day as "Bloody Sunday," one of the pivotal moments of the civil rights movement. Alabama state troopers fell on the unarmed protestors as they crossed the bridge, beating and tear gassing them. In Selma;€™s Bloody Sunday, Robert A. Pratt offers a vivid account of that infamous day and the indelible triumph of black and white protest over white resistance. He explores how the march itself;¢;‚¬;€?and the 1965 Voting Rights Act that followed;¢;‚¬;€?represented a reaffirmation of the nation;€™s centuries-old declaration of universal equality and the fulfillment of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution.Selma;€™s Bloody Sunday offers a fresh interpretation of the ongoing struggle by African Americans to participate freely in America;€™s electoral democracy. Jumping forward to the present day, Pratt uses the march as a lens through which to examine disturbing recent debates concerning who should, and who should not, be allowed to vote. Drawing on archival materials, secondary sources, and eyewitness accounts of the brave men and women who marched, this gripping account offers a brief and nuanced narrative of this critical phase of the black freedom struggle.
Seven Wonders of the Universe That You Probably Took for Granted
by C. Renée JamesTime. Gravity. Night. So much of what surrounds us feels familiar and mundane. But each is a wonder that reveals profound insights into the world around us.C. Renée James's whimsical tour of seven everyday experiences—night, light, stuff, gravity, time, home, and wonder—opens the Universe to fantastical contemplation. Light? Although we need it to see, there's much more to it than meets the eye. Stuff? When it comes down to it, things are almost entirely empty space—99.9% nothing—especially when you get to the atomic level. Home? James's contemplation of our place in the Universe shows that it's not just a place to hang your hat—and that there’s really nothing else like it. James introduces each of these seven wonders with a simple question that appears to be easily answered. The questions are deceptive, though—as is James's casual, light-hearted style. Underneath lie such concepts as relativity, matter and antimatter, and the electromagnetic spectrum. Her accessible discussion uses common analogies and entertaining illustrations to provide a bundle of detail on historical discoveries and to provoke serious pondering. Fun and edifying, Seven Wonders of the Universe That You Probably Took for Granted is an inviting introduction to secret knowledge of our everyday world. This book may be 99.9% nothing, but the thoughts it will inspire are massive.
Shays's Rebellion: Authority and Distress in Post-Revolutionary America (Witness to History)
by Sean CondonThroughout the late summer and fall of 1786, farmers in central and western Massachusetts organized themselves into armed groups to protest against established authority and aggressive creditors. Calling themselves "regulators" or the "voice of the people," these crowds attempted to pressure the state government to lower taxes and provide relief to debtors by using some of the same methods employed against British authority a decade earlier. From the perspective of men of wealth and station, these farmers threatened the foundations of society: property rights and their protection in courts and legislature.In this concise and compelling account of the uprising that came to be known as Shays’s Rebellion, Sean Condon describes the economic difficulties facing both private citizens and public officials in newly independent Massachusetts. He explains the state government policy that precipitated the farmers’ revolt, details the machinery of tax and debt collection in the 1780s, and provides readers with a vivid example of how the establishment of a republican form of government shifted the boundaries of dissent and organized protest. Underscoring both the fragility and the resilience of government authority in the nascent republic, the uprising and its aftermath had repercussions far beyond western Massachusetts; ultimately, it shaped the framing and ratification of the U.S. Constitution, which in turn ushered in a new, stronger, and property-friendly federal government. A masterful telling of a complicated story, Shays’s Rebellion is aimed at scholars and students of American history.
Shays's Rebellion: Authority and Distress in Post-Revolutionary America (Witness to History)
by Sean CondonThroughout the late summer and fall of 1786, farmers in central and western Massachusetts organized themselves into armed groups to protest against established authority and aggressive creditors. Calling themselves "regulators" or the "voice of the people," these crowds attempted to pressure the state government to lower taxes and provide relief to debtors by using some of the same methods employed against British authority a decade earlier. From the perspective of men of wealth and station, these farmers threatened the foundations of society: property rights and their protection in courts and legislature.In this concise and compelling account of the uprising that came to be known as Shays’s Rebellion, Sean Condon describes the economic difficulties facing both private citizens and public officials in newly independent Massachusetts. He explains the state government policy that precipitated the farmers’ revolt, details the machinery of tax and debt collection in the 1780s, and provides readers with a vivid example of how the establishment of a republican form of government shifted the boundaries of dissent and organized protest. Underscoring both the fragility and the resilience of government authority in the nascent republic, the uprising and its aftermath had repercussions far beyond western Massachusetts; ultimately, it shaped the framing and ratification of the U.S. Constitution, which in turn ushered in a new, stronger, and property-friendly federal government. A masterful telling of a complicated story, Shays’s Rebellion is aimed at scholars and students of American history.