Throughout the World War I era, the United States Marine Corps' efforts to promote their culture of manliness directed attention away from the dangers of war and military life and towards its potential benefits. As a military institution that valued physical, mental, and moral strength, the Marines created an alluring image for young men seeking a rite of passage into manhood. Within this context, the potential for danger and death only enhanced the appeal.Mark Ryland Folse's The Globe and Anchor Men offers the first in-depth history of masculinity in the Marine Corps during the World War I era. White manhood and manliness constituted the lens through which the Marines of this period saw themselves, how they wanted the public to see them, and what they believed they contributed to society. Their highly gendered culture helped foster positive public relations, allowing Marines to successfully promote the potential benefits of becoming a Marine over the costs, even in times of war.By examining how the Marine Corps' culture, public image, and esteem within U.S. society evolved, Folse demonstrates that the American people measured the Marines' usefulness not only in terms of military readiness but also according to standards of manliness set by popular culture and by Marines themselves. The Marines claimed to recruit the finest specimens of American manhood and make them even better: strong, brave, and morally upright. They claimed the Marine would be a man with a wealth of travel and experience behind him. He would be a proud and worthy citizen who had earned respect through his years of service, training, and struggle in the Marine Corps. Becoming a Marine benefited the man, and the new Marine benefited the nation. As men became manlier, the country did, too.
Jonathan Bartho's Whistling Dixie explores the interdependent political relationship between Ronald Reagan and the white conservative South, a relationship that had a profound impact on Reagan's own career, on the political landscape of the South and the entire United States, and on the identity of the modern Republican Party. Millions of southerners were attracted to the GOP by Reagan's anti-statist ideology and their affection for the man himself--an affection that had been built over decades of appearances in the region. The support of these white southern conservatives was crucial to Reagan's political success, ultimately propelling him to the White House in 1980. Conversely, by supporting Reagan's presidential campaigns, southern conservatives were able to influence the direction of the Republican Party and begin restoring their region to a position of power in Washington.Bartho deftly provides a new perspective on Reagan's political career and the Republican Party of the Reagan era while detailing the often-rancorous philosophical differences between Reaganism and southern conservatism and the resulting political conflicts. Whistling Dixie highlights a divide in the Republican Party and in American conservatism that has often been overlooked--a divide that laid the foundations for the GOP's southernization and ultimately led to the rise of Donald Trump.
The "ethnic cleansing" that has gripped the Balkans for much of this decade is but another chapter in the long history of man's inhumanity to man. Hopeful but unflinching in the face of such realities, Howard Ball's book focuses on international efforts to punish perpetrators of genocide and other war crimes. Combining history, politics, and critical analysis, he revisits the killing fields of Cambodia, documents the three-month Hutu "machete genocide" of about 800,000 Tutsi villagers in Rwanda, and casts recent headlines from Kosovo in the light of these other conflicts.Beginning with the 1899 Geneva Accords and the Armenian genocide of World War I, Ball traces efforts to create an institution to judge, punish, and ultimately deter such atrocities--particularly since World War II, since which there have been fourteen cases of genocide. He shows how international military tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo set important precedents for international criminal justice, tells what the international community learned from its failure to stop Pol Pot in Cambodia, and describes the ad hoc tribunals convened to address genocide in the Balkans and Rwanda. He then focuses on the establishment of the International Criminal Court with the Treaty of Rome in 1998 and assesses its probable future.The book also analyzes the reluctance of the United States to sanction the ICC, tracing longstanding U.S. reluctance to grant criminal justice jurisdiction to an international prosecutor. Ball examines questions of national sovereignty versus international law and reminds us that although most Americans consider such horrors to be problems of other countries, these are in fact countries in which many of our own citizens have their roots.With its unique focus on the ICC, Prosecuting War Crimes and Genocide is a work of both synthesis and advocacy that combines history and current events to make us more aware of the racist fervor with which these brutalities are carried out, more alert to the euphemisms in which they are cloaked. It forces us to ask not only whether the killing will stop, but whether humanity can prevent future genocides.
Winner: Army Historical Foundation Award for Excellence in U.S. Army History Writing The modern US Army as we know it was largely created in the years between the two world wars. Prior to World War I, officers in leadership positions were increasingly convinced that building a new army could not take place as a series of random developments but was an enterprise that had to be guided by a distinct military policy that enjoyed the support of the nation. In 1920, Congress accepted that idea and embodied it in the National Defense Act. In doing so it also accepted army leadership's idea of entrusting America's security to a unique force, the Citizen Army, and tasked the nation's Regular Army with developing and training that force. Creating the Modern Army details the efforts of the Regular Army to do so in the face of austerity budgets and public apathy while simultaneously responding to the challenges posed by the new and revolutionary mechanization of warfare.In this book Woolley focuses on the development of what he sees as the four major features of the modernized army that emerged due to these efforts. These included the creation of the civilian components of the new army: the Citizen's Military Training Camps, the Officer Reserve Corps, the National Guard, and the Reserve Officer Training Corps; the development of the four major combat branches as the structural basis for organizing the army as well as creating the means to educate new officers and soldiers about their craft and to socialize them into an army culture; the creation of a rationalized and progressive system of professional military education; and the initial mechanization of the combat branches. Woolley also points out how the development of the army in this period was heavily influenced by policies and actions of the president and Congress.The US Army that fought World War II was clearly a citizen army whose leadership was largely trained within the framework of the institutions of the army created by the National Defense Act. The way that army fought the war may have been less decisive and more costly in terms of lives and money than it should have been. But that army won the war and therefore validated the citizen army as the US way of war.
This work is based on the author's PhD dissertation "Jefferson's Sons: Notes on the State of Virginia and Virginian Antislavery, 1760-1832."
This wry portrayal of academic life will delight anyone who has ever spent time on a college campus. Writing with lightly satirical, self-deprecating charm, Joel Gold covers topics ranging from academic conventions to motivating recalcitrant students, from grantsmanship to the IRS, from the follies and foibles of academics to sabbaticals and living overseas. Twenty-six tales are illustrated with caricatures that capture perfectly the diffident, bemused, often befuddled wayward professor.
Downhill skiing is a vital economic engine for many communities in the Rocky Mountain states, attracting 20 million skier days per season. Colorado is by far the most popular destination, with more than two dozen major ski resorts creating a thriving industry that adds billions to the state's coffers. But, many ask, at what costMichael Childers traces the rise of Colorado's ski industry alongside that of the burgeoning environmental movement, which sprang up in opposition to rampant commercial development on mountains that had been designated as public lands. Combining official ski resort figures, U.S. Forest Service documents, real estate and tourism records, wildlife data, newspaper articles, and public comments, Childers shows how what started as an innocent leisurely pursuit has morphed into a multi-billion dollar business that forever changed the landscape of Colorado and brought with it serious environmental consequences.This first environmental history of skiing in Colorado traces the recreation's rise in popularity as a way of examining major changes in public land management in the American West during the last century. As more people headed to Colorado's mountains in search of thrills on the slopes, the USFS quickly became overwhelmed by the demand and turned resort development over to the private sector. The result has been a decades-long battle between developers and environmentalists-with skiers and Colorado residents caught in the middle.Childers examines the history of the ski industry within Colorado throughout the twentieth century along with the challenges the industry's growth posed in balancing the private development of public lands and mounting environmental concerns over issues such as rural growth, wildlife management, and air and water pollution. He then traces the history of radical environmentalism back to the 1960s to show how it picked up momentum, culminating in the Earth Liberation Front's 1998 arson at Vail Ski Resort-which ended up doing more harm than good to the environmentalist cause by recasting the mega-resorts as victims and turning public opinion against all environmental activists in the area.As Americans weigh their desire for fresh powder against their concern for protecting unspoiled lands, Childers's book provides valuable food for thought. Colorado Powder Keg opens a new window on the history of skiing in the American West as it adds to the broader debate over the management and purpose of national forests.
The constitutional balance of war powers has shifted from Congress to the president over time. Today, presidents broadly define their constitutional authority as commander in chief. In the nineteenth century, however, Congress was the institution that claimed and defended expansive war powers authority. This discrepancy raises important questions: How, specifically, did Congress define the boundaries between presidential and congressional war powers in the early republic? Did that definition change, and if so, when, how, and why did it do so?Based on an original, comprehensive dataset of every congressional reference to the commander-in-chief clause from the Founding through 1917, Casey Dominguez's Commander in Chief systematically analyzes the authority that members of Congress ascribe to the president as commander in chief and the boundaries they put around that authority.Dominguez shows that for more than a century members of Congress defined the commander in chief's authority narrowly, similar to that of any high-ranking military officer. But in a wave of nationalism during the Spanish-American War, members of Congress began to argue that Congress owed deference to the commander in chief. They also tended to argue that a president of their own party should have broad war powers, while the powers of a president in the other party should be defined narrowly. Together, these two dynamics suggest that the conditions for presidentially dominated modern constitutional war powers were set at the turn of the twentieth century, far earlier than is often acknowledged.
"If there is debate on some of the finer points of Ulysses S. Grant's inland campaign, few dispute its brilliance and no one can argue with the results: Grant arrived victorious at the exact place he sought: the high ground east of Vicksburg where he had access to both the city and an open and unchallenged supply route via the Yazoo River to the north. It was the very ground Grant had wanted for months. He could finally begin the process of actually capturing Vicksburg. In the entire nine-month-long campaign, there was no more tension and drama than in these seventeen days when Grant's Army of the Tennessee marched through the wilds of Mississippi to victory after victory, tearing the heart out of the State of Mississippi and the Confederacy. This is the fifth and final of Tim's Vicksburg volumes to launch, but chronologically not the last in the five-volume series. It falls between Bayou Battles for Vicksburg (January 1 to April 30, 1863) and The Siege of Vicksburg (May 23 to July 4, 1863)"--
"Gathering its waters from the plains of Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska, the Kaw is truly America's prairie river; the only one to arise entirely on the Great Plains and traverse all three major grasslands-shortgrass, mixed-grass, and tallgrass prairies. James Locklear's In the Country of the Kaw is a joyous exploration of the realm of the Kaw River, which stretches from the High Plains of Colorado to the Kansas City metropolitan area.The book's first section profiles geology, landforms, and the region's woodlands and grasslands. The second explores the rich biological diversity associated with the land and its inhabitants' remarkable adaptations to the environment and each other. The final section is a collection of stories of human interaction with the landscape, how nature has shaped culture and culture nature. Locklear finds "astonishments" at every turn. In the Country of the Kaw is also a call to seek the flourishing of the natural and human communities of the region. Locklear describes staggering, human-wrought environmental degradations, but also finds great hope in the resilience of Nature and the inspiring work of conservation, preservation, restoration, and renewal being accomplished by individuals and organizations throughout the region. Locklear's relationship with the country of the Kaw stretches from his childhood in Kansas City in the 1960s to his current professional life as a botanist working in the Great Plains. A half century of rambling and rooting around in this region has given him a deep awe and affection for its uniqueness and goodness, which he conveys to the reader on every page"--
"Wildflowers and Grasses of Kansas: A Field Guide was published in 2005 and included full descriptions and color photographs of 323 common and conspicuous wildflowers, grasses, and grasslike plants found in the state. This updated and enlarged edition contains descriptions and accompanying color photos of 99 additional species. Six species found in the original edition have been removed. Four were trees that are covered in more detail and with multiple identification photographs in Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines in Kansas (Haddock and Freeman, 2019) . . . . . The primary focus is on native species, though selected frequently observed naturalized species have been included . In the 16 years since Wildflowers and Grasses of Kansas: A Field Guide was published, there have been advances in our understanding of the evolutionary relationships of vascular plants. Studies of DNA, macro- and micromorphology, cytology, phenology, ecology, and biogeography have impacted our understanding of the flora of Kansas. Consequently, an important component of this edition has been to update the nomenclature and circumscribe taxa along lines that are more consistent with current knowledge"--
Speaking of cabinet appointments hed made as governor, presidential candidate Mitt Romney famously spoke of having whole binders full of women to consider. The line was much mocked; and yet, Kaitlin Sidorsky suggests, it raises a point long overlooked in discussions of the gender gap in politics: many more women are appointed, rather than elected, to political office. Analyzing an original survey of political appointments at all levels of state government, All Roads Lead to Power offers an expanded, more nuanced view of women in politics. This book also questions the manner in which political ambition, particularly among women, is typically studied and understood.In a deep comparative analysis of appointed and elected state positions, All Roads Lead to Power highlights how the differences between being appointed or elected explain why so many more women serve in appointed offices. These women, Sidorsky finds, are not always victims of a much-cited lack of self-confidence or ambition, or of a biased political sphere. More often, they make a conscious decision to enter politics through what they believe is a far less partisan and negative entry point. Furthermore, Sidorskys research reveals that many women end up in political appointmentsat all levelsnot because they are ambitious to hold public office, but because the work connects with their personal lives or careers.With its groundbreaking research and insights into the ambitions, recruitment, and motivations of appointed officials, Sidorskys work broadens our conception of political representation and alters our understanding of how and why women pursue and achieve political power.
In 1966 Richard Nixon hired Patrick J. Buchanan, a young editorial writer at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, to help lay the groundwork for his presidential campaign. Fiercely conservative and a whiz at messaging and media strategy, Buchanan continued with Nixon through his tenure in office, becoming one of the presidents most important and trusted advisors, particularly on public matters. The copious memos he produced over this period, counseling the president on press relations, policy positions, and political strategy, provide a remarkable behind-the-scenes look into the workings of the Nixon White Houseand a uniquely informed perspective on the development and deployment of ideas and practices that would forever change presidential conduct and US politics.Of the thousand housed at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, presidential scholar Lori Cox Han has judiciously selected 135 of Buchanans memos that best exemplify the significant nature and reach of his influence in the Nixon administration. Here, in his now-familiar take-no-prisoners style, Buchanan can be seen advancing his deeply conservative agenda, counterpunching against advisors he considered too moderate, and effectively guiding the president and his administration through a changing, often hostile political environment. On every point of policy and political issueforeign and domesticthrough two successful campaigns, Nixons first term, and the fraught months surrounding the Watergate debacle, Buchanan presses his advantage, all the while honing the message that would push conservatism ever rightward in the following years. Expertly edited and annotated by Han, Advising Nixon: The White House Memos of Patrick J. Buchanan offers rare insight into the decision-making and maneuvering of some of the most powerful figures in governmentwith lasting consequences for American public life.
A few blocks southeast of the famed intersection of 18th and Vine in Kansas City, Missouri, just a stone's throw from Charlie Parker's old stomping grounds and the current home of the vaunted American Jazz Museum and Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, sits Montgall Avenue. This single block was home to some of the most important and influential leaders the city has ever known.Margie Carr's Kansas City's Montgall Avenue: Black Leaders and the Street They Called Home is the extraordinary, century-old history of one city block whose residents shaped the changing status of Black people in Kansas City and built the social and economic institutions that supported the city's Black community during the first half of the twentieth century. The community included, among others, Chester Franklin, founder of the city's Black newspaper, The Call; Lucile Bluford, a University of Kansas alumna who worked at The Call for 69 years; and Dr. John Edward Perry, founder of Wheatley-Provident Hospital, Kansas City's first hospital for Black people. The principal and four teachers from Lincoln High School, Kanas City's only high school for African American students, also lived on the block.While introducing the reader to the remarkable individuals living on Montgall Avenue, Carr also uses this neighborhood as a microcosm of the changing nature of discrimination in twentieth-century America. The city's white leadership had little interest in supporting the Black community and instead used its resources to separate and isolate them. The state of Missouri enforced segregation statues until the 1960s and the federal government created housing policies that erased any assets Black homeowners accumulated, robbing them of their ability to transfer that wealth to the next generation.Today, the 2400 block of Montgall Avenue is situated in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Kansas City. The attitudes and policies that contributed to the neighborhood's changing environment paint a more complete--and disturbing--picture of the role that race in continues to play in America's story.
"Gathering Strays is a collection of vignettes about Kansas, Great Plains, and Western life--historical and contemporary. Jim Hoy has gathered short essays into sections: Cattle Towns, Outlaws, The Cowboy, and several others. He introduces us to folks we've not met--such as failed train robber Elmer McCurdy, whose arsenic-embalmed body went on tour and made money for the undertaker, Joseph Johnson of Pawhuska, KS--and those with whom we're more familiar, such as Jesse James and Buffalo Bill. He tells us about the origin of the cowboy and about Black cowboys and Mexican Vaqueros. He recounts stories about rodeo and cattle drives. And throughout, his style, easy to read yet authoritative, describes the people, places, and events that make the region distinctive and celebrated"--
On June 15, 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County, in a 6-to-3 decision with a majority opinion authored by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. The decision was a surprise to many, if not most, observers, but as Jason Pierceson explores in this work, it was not completely unanticipated. The decision was grounded in a recent but well-developed shift in federal jurisprudence on the question of LGBTQ+ rights that occurred around 2000, with gender identity claims faring better in federal court after decades of skepticism. The most important precedent for these cases was a 1989 Supreme Court case that did not deal directly with LGBTQ+ rights: Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins.The court ruled in Price Waterhouse that sex stereotyping is a form of discrimination under Title VII, a provision that prohibits discrimination in employment based upon sex. Ann Hopkins was a cisgender, heterosexual woman who was denied a promotion at her accounting firm for being too masculine. At the time of the decision, and in the wake of the devastating decision for the LGBTQ+ movement in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), the case was not viewed as creating a strong precedential foundation for LGBTQ+ rights claims, especially claims based upon sexual orientation. Even in the context of gender identity, the connection was not made to the emerging movement for transgender rights until a decade later. In the 2000s, however, federal courts were consistently applying the case to protect transgender individuals.While not the result of coordinated litigation, nor initially connected to the LGBTQ+ rights movement, Price Waterhouse has been one of the most important and powerful precedents in recent years outside of the marriage equality cases. Before Bostock tells the story of how this accidental precedent evolved into such a crucial case for contemporary LGBTQ+ rights.Pierceson examines the groundbreaking Supreme Court decision of Bostock v. Clayton County through the legal path created by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the interpretation of the word sex over time. Focusing on history, courageous LGBTQ+ plaintiffs, and the careful work of legal activists, Before Bostock illustrates how the courts can expand LGBTQ+ rights when legislators are more resistant, and it adds to our understanding about contemporary judicial policymaking in the context of statutory interpretation.
The landmark Brown v. Board of Education case was the start of a long period of desegregation, but Brown did not give a roadmap for how to achieve this lofty goalit only provided the destination. In the years that followed, the path toward the fulfillment of this vision for school integration was worked out in the courts through the efforts of the NAACP Legal Defense organization and the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice. One of the major cases on this path was Lee v. Macon County Board of Education (1967).Revolution by Law traces the growth of Lee v. Macon County from a case to desegregate a single school district in rural Alabama to a decision that paved the way for ending state-imposed racial segregation of the schools in the Deep South. Author Brian Landsberg began his career as a young attorney working for the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ in 1964, the year after the lawsuit that would lead to the Lee decision was filed.As someone personally involved in the legal struggle for civil rights, Landsberg writes with first-hand knowledge of the case. His carefully researched study of this important case argues that private plaintiffs, the executive branch, the federal courts, and eventually Congress each played important roles in transforming the South from the most segregated to the least segregated region of the United States. The Lee case played a central role in dismantling Alabamas official racial caste system, and the decision became the model both for other statewide school desegregation cases and for cases challenging conditions in prisons and institutions for mentally ill people. Revolution by Law gives readers a deep understanding of the methods used by the federal government to desegregate the schools of the Deep South.
Presents a panorama on a continental canvas: the Great Plains of North America, stretching from Texas to Alberta. Onto this surface the author lays the large features of regional practice in the harvesting and threshing of wheat during the days before the combined harvester.
In this sensitive and revealing biography, Joseph Herring explores Kenekuk's rise to power and astute leadership, as well as tracing the evolution of his policy of acculturation. This strategy proved highly effective in protecting Kenekuk's people against the increasingly complex, intrusive, and hostile white world.
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