Civil War Soldiers of Kendall County, Texas: A Biographical Dictionary (open access)

Civil War Soldiers of Kendall County, Texas: A Biographical Dictionary

Book containing an alphabetical list of persons from Kendall County, Texas who served in the military during the Civil War, with any known biographical information about each person. There is also relevant background information about the area in the preface, and a series of tables at the end of the book, containing additional reference material. A table of contents is on page v.
Date: 2013
Creator: Kiel, Frank Wilson 1930-
Object Type: Book
System: The Portal to Texas History
Showing the Flag: War Cruiser Karlsruhe and Germandom Abroad (open access)

Showing the Flag: War Cruiser Karlsruhe and Germandom Abroad

In the early 1920s the Weimar Republic commissioned a series of new light cruisers of the Königsberg class and in July 1926, the keel of the later christened Karlsruhe was laid down. The 570 feet long and almost 50 feet wide ship was used as a training cruiser for future German naval officers. Between 1930 and 1936 the ship conducted in all five good-will tours around the world, two under the Weimar Republic and three under the Third Reich. These good-will tours or gute Willen Fahrten were an important first step in reconciling Germany to the rest of the world and were meant to improve international relations. The Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defense carefully orchestrated all stops of the vessels in conjunction with the respective embassies abroad. Final arrangements were made at least six-nine months before the scheduled visits and even small adjustments to the itinerary proved troublesome. Further, all visits were treated as “unofficial presentations.” The mission of the Karlsruhe was twofold: first to extend or renew relations with other nations, and second to foster notions of Heimat and the Germandom (Deutschtum) abroad. The dissertation is divided in two large parts; the individual training cruises with all …
Date: August 2013
Creator: De Santiago Ramos, Simone Carlota Cezanne
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Josephus’ Jewish War and the Causes of the Jewish Revolt: Re-examining Inevitability (open access)

Josephus’ Jewish War and the Causes of the Jewish Revolt: Re-examining Inevitability

The Jewish revolt against the Romans in 66 CE can be seen as the culmination of years of oppression at the hands of their Roman overlords. The first-century historian Josephus narrates the developments of the war and the events prior. A member of the priestly class and a general in the war, Josephus provides us a detailed account that has long troubled historians. This book was an attempt by Josephus to explain the nature of the war to his primary audience of predominantly angry and grieving Jews. The causes of the war are explained in different terms, ranging from Roman provincial administration, Jewish apocalypticism, and Jewish internal struggles. The Jews eventually reached a tipping point and engaged the Romans in open revolt. Josephus was adamant that the origin of the revolt remained with a few, youthful individuals who were able to persuade the country to rebel. This thesis emphasizes the causes of the war as Josephus saw them and how they are reflected both within The Jewish War and the later work Jewish Antiquities. By observing the Roman provincial administration spanning 6-66 CE, I argue that Judaea had low moments sprinkled throughout the time but in 66 there was something …
Date: December 2013
Creator: Lopez, Javier
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Military-diplomatic Adventurism:  Communist China's Foreign Policy in the Early Stage of the Korean War (1950-1951) (open access)

Military-diplomatic Adventurism: Communist China's Foreign Policy in the Early Stage of the Korean War (1950-1951)

The thesis studies the relations of Communist China's foreign policy and its military offensives in the battlefield in Korean Peninsula in late 1950 and early 1951, an important topic that has yet received little academic attention. As original research, this thesis cites extensively from newly declassified Soviet and Chinese archives, as well as American and UN sources. This paper finds that an adventurism dominated the thinking and decision-making of Communist leaders in Beijing and Moscow, who seriously underestimated the military capabilities and diplomatic leverages of the US-led West. The origin of this adventurism, this paper argues, lays in the CCP's civil war experience with their Nationalist adversaries, which featured a preference of mobile warfare over positional warfare, and an opportunist attitude on cease-fire. This adventurism ended only when Communist front line came to the verge of collapse in June 1951.
Date: August 2013
Creator: Zhong, Wenrui
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Southern Roots, Western Foundations: the Peculiar Institution and the Livestock Industry on the Northwestern Frontier of Texas, 1846-1864 (open access)

Southern Roots, Western Foundations: the Peculiar Institution and the Livestock Industry on the Northwestern Frontier of Texas, 1846-1864

This dissertation challenges Charles W. Ramsdell's needless war theory, which argued that profitable slavery would not have existed west of the 98th meridian and that slavery would have died a natural death. It uses statistical information that is mined from the county tax records to show how slave-owners on the northwestern frontier of Texas raised livestock rather than market crops, before and during the Civil War. This enterprise was so strong that it not only continued to expand throughout this period, but it also became the foundation for the recovery of the Texas economy after the war.
Date: August 2013
Creator: Liles, Deborah Marie
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Ideological Appropriation of La Malinche in Mexican and Chicano Literature (open access)

The Ideological Appropriation of La Malinche in Mexican and Chicano Literature

La Malinche is one of the most controversial figures in Mexican and Chicano literature. The historical facts about her life before and after the Spanish Conquest are largely speculative. What is reliably known is that she had a significant role as translator, which developed into something of mythic proportions. The ideological appropriation of her image by three authors, Octavio Paz, Laura Esquivel and Cherríe Moraga, are explored in this thesis. The full extent of the proposed rendition of La Malinche by Octavio Paz is the basis of the second chapter. The conclusion drawn by Paz, in The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950) is that La Malinche is what he calls la chingada [the raped/violated one] and proposes that all women are always open to conquest, sexually and otherwise. Laura Esquivel's novel Malinche (2006) is a re-interpretation that focuses on the tongue as the source of power and language as the ultimate source of autonomy for La Malinche. This aspect of La Malinche and the contrast of Paz's understanding are the basis of the third chapter of this thesis. Cherríe Moraga, in Loving in the War Years (1983), proposes that if women are to be traitors, it is not each other that …
Date: August 2013
Creator: Moriel Hinojosa, Rita Daphne
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Warrior Women in Early Modern Literature (open access)

Warrior Women in Early Modern Literature

Fantasies about warrior women circulated in many forms of writing in early modern England: travel narratives such as Sir Walter Ralegh's The Discoverie of Guiana (1595) portray Amazon encounters in the New World; poems like Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1596) depict women's skill with a spear; and the plays of Shakespeare, John Fletcher, and others stage the adventurous feats of women on the battlefield. In this dissertation, I analyze the social anxieties that emerge when warrior women threaten gender hierarchies in the patriarchal society of early modern England. The battlefield has traditionally been a site for men to prove their masculinity against other men, so when male characters find themselves submitting to a sword-wielding woman, they are forced to reimagine their own masculine identities as they become the objects acted upon by women. In their experience of subjectivity, these literary warrior women often allude to the historical Queen Elizabeth I, whose reign destabilized ideas about gender and power in the period. Negative evaluations of warrior women often indicate anxiety about Elizabeth as an Amazon-like queen. Thus, portrayals of warrior women often end with a celebration of patriarchal dominance once the male characters have successfully contained the threat of the …
Date: May 2013
Creator: Oxendine, Jessica Grace
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Ethnic Politics in New States: Russian and Serbian Minorities After Secession (open access)

Ethnic Politics in New States: Russian and Serbian Minorities After Secession

New states are often born in a volatile environment, in which the survival of the new country is uncertain. While analysis of the nationalizing new governments exists, research focuses mainly on domestic politics. I argue that the treatment of minority that remains in the new states is a function of the interaction of the dual threat posed by the minority itself domestically on one hand and the international threat coming from the mother state to protect its kin abroad on the other hand. Specifically, I argue that there is a curvilinear relationship between domestic and international threat and the extent of discrimination against the politically relevant minority. Most discrimination takes place when domestic and international threats are moderate because in this case there is a balance of power between the government, the minority, and the rump state. With time-series-cross-sectional (TSCS) data analysis this dissertation systematically tests the treatment of Russian and Serbian minorities in all post-Soviet and post-Yugoslav states between 1991 and 2006 and finds statistically significant results for the curvilinear hypothesis. Territorial concentration of the minority and the ratio of national capabilities between the mother and the seceded states prove to be especially important predictors of minority treatment. In …
Date: May 2013
Creator: Batta, Anna
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Political, Economic, and Military Decline of Venice Leading Up to 1797 (open access)

The Political, Economic, and Military Decline of Venice Leading Up to 1797

This thesis discusses the decline of the Venetian nobility, the collapse of the Venetian economy, and the political results of the surrender of the Venetian Republic to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797. Topics include the formation of Venice, Venetian domination of trade, the class system in Venice prior to 1797, the collapse of the aristocracy, feudalism in Venice, Venice’s presence in the Adriatic and Aegean seas, and the rise of the middle class within the provisional democratic government. Very few historians have attempted to research the provisional democracy of Venice and how the political and class structure of Venice changed as a result of the collapse of the Republic in 1797. Using primary sources, including government documents and contemporary histories, one can see how the once dominant noble class slowly fell victim to economic ruin and finally lost their role in the political leadership of Venice all together. During this same period, the middle class went from only holding secretarial jobs within the government, to leaders of a modern democratic movement. On top of primary research, several secondary sources helped in explaining the exclusivity of the noble class and their journey from economic dominance to economic ruin and the administrative consequences …
Date: December 2013
Creator: FitzSimons, Anna Katelin
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Shakespeare and Modeling Political Subjectivity (open access)

Shakespeare and Modeling Political Subjectivity

This dissertation examines the role of aesthetic activity in the pursuit of political agency in readings of several of Shakespeare’s plays, including Hamlet (1600), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595), The Tempest (1610), the history plays of the second tetralogy (1595-9), Julius Caesar (1599), and Coriolanus (1605). I demonstrate how Shakespeare models political subjectivity—the capacity for individuals to participate meaningfully in the political realm—as necessitating active aesthetic agency. This aesthetic agency entails the fashioning of artistically conceived public personae that potential political subjects enact in the public sphere and the critical engagement of the aesthetic and political discourses of the subjects’ culture in a self-reflective and appropriative manner. Furthermore, these subjects should be wary auditors of the texts and personae they encounter within the public sphere in order to avoid internalizing constraining ideologies that reify their identities into forms less conducive to the pursuit of liberty and social mobility. Early modern audiences could discover several models for doing so in Shakespeare’s works. For example, Hamlet posits a model of Machiavellian theatricality that masks the Prince's interiority as he resists the biopolitical force and disciplinary discourses of Claudius's Denmark. Julius Caesar and Coriolanus advance a model of citizenship through the plays’ nameless …
Date: December 2013
Creator: Worlow, Christian D.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Blood and Earth: Indivisible Territory and Terrorist Group Longevity (open access)

Blood and Earth: Indivisible Territory and Terrorist Group Longevity

The study of terrorism has been both broad in scope and varied in approach. Little work has been done, however, on the territorial aspects of terrorist groups. Most terrorist groups are revolutionary to one degree or another, seeking the control of a piece of territory; but for the supportive population of a terrorist group, how important is the issue of territory? Are the intangible qualities of territory more salient to a given population than other factors? Are territorially based terrorist groups more durable than their ideologically or religiously motivated cohorts? This paper aims to propose the validity of the territorial argument for the study of political terrorism.
Date: May 2013
Creator: Glass, Richard A.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Copperas Cove Leader-Press (Copperas Cove, Tex.), Vol. 118, No. 61, Ed. 1 Friday, May 3, 2013 (open access)

Copperas Cove Leader-Press (Copperas Cove, Tex.), Vol. 118, No. 61, Ed. 1 Friday, May 3, 2013

Semi-weekly newspaper from Copperas Cove, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with advertising.
Date: May 3, 2013
Creator: unknown
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History
Historical and Theological Backgrounds of the Whore of Babylon in Revelation 17 & 18 in a Jewish Context (open access)

Historical and Theological Backgrounds of the Whore of Babylon in Revelation 17 & 18 in a Jewish Context

I argue that some ancient Jewish sects, specifically the community at Qumran and the early Christians, did in fact write against, speak out against, and interpret ancient tests as being against their fellow Jews, the Temple, Jerusalem or all three. Given the time in which these occurred, I argue that those sects believed that the Roman Empire would be means in which their god would punish/destroy Jews that did not believe as they did, the Temple that did not represent what they thought it should, and Jerusalem as they believed it had become a sinful city. I examine the writings and persons of the Greek Bible. I examine specifics such as the Parable of the Tenants and demonstrate that this was delivered against Jewish leadership and the Olivet Discourse that, like the book of Jubilees, presents a series of tribulations that will fall on a wicked generation, specifically the one living in Jerusalem during the first century C.E. I also demonstrate how the motif of these writings affected the book of Revelation. I examine the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible and show how the author used them as allusions in regards to the Whore of Babylon that appear in …
Date: December 2013
Creator: Wheatley, Warren
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Jewish Herald-Voice (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 106, No. 7, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 2, 2013 (open access)

Jewish Herald-Voice (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 106, No. 7, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 2, 2013

Weekly Jewish newspaper from Houston, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with extensive advertising.
Date: May 2, 2013
Creator: Samuels, Jeanne F.
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History
Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 176, Ed. 1 Friday, January 25, 2013 (open access)

Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 176, Ed. 1 Friday, January 25, 2013

Daily newspaper from Denton, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.
Date: January 25, 2013
Creator: Cobb, Dawn
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History
Texas Jewish Post (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 8, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 21, 2013 (open access)

Texas Jewish Post (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 8, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 21, 2013

Weekly Jewish newspaper from Dallas, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with extensive advertising.
Date: February 21, 2013
Creator: Wisch-Ray, Sharon
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History
Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 202, Ed. 1 Wednesday, February 20, 2013 (open access)

Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 202, Ed. 1 Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Daily newspaper from Denton, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.
Date: February 20, 2013
Creator: Cobb, Dawn
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History
The Monitor (Mabank, Tex.), Vol. 39, No. 80, Ed. 1 Sunday, May 19, 2013 (open access)

The Monitor (Mabank, Tex.), Vol. 39, No. 80, Ed. 1 Sunday, May 19, 2013

Semi-weekly newspaper from Mabank, Texas that includes local Cedar Creek Lake area, state and national news along with extensive advertising.
Date: May 19, 2013
Creator: Cantrell, Pearl
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History
Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 320, Ed. 1 Tuesday, June 18, 2013 (open access)

Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 320, Ed. 1 Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Daily newspaper from Denton, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.
Date: June 18, 2013
Creator: Cobb, Dawn
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History
Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 250, Ed. 1 Tuesday, April 9, 2013 (open access)

Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 250, Ed. 1 Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Daily newspaper from Denton, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.
Date: April 9, 2013
Creator: Cobb, Dawn
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History
Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 317, Ed. 1 Saturday, June 15, 2013 (open access)

Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 317, Ed. 1 Saturday, June 15, 2013

Daily newspaper from Denton, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.
Date: June 15, 2013
Creator: Cobb, Dawn
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History
Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 110, No. 80, Ed. 1 Monday, October 21, 2013 (open access)

Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 110, No. 80, Ed. 1 Monday, October 21, 2013

Daily newspaper from Denton, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.
Date: October 21, 2013
Creator: Cobb, Dawn
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History
Copperas Cove Leader-Press (Copperas Cove, Tex.), Vol. 118, No. 54, Ed. 1 Tuesday, April 9, 2013 (open access)

Copperas Cove Leader-Press (Copperas Cove, Tex.), Vol. 118, No. 54, Ed. 1 Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Semi-weekly newspaper from Copperas Cove, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with advertising.
Date: April 9, 2013
Creator: unknown
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History
Texas Jewish Post (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 23, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 6, 2013 (open access)

Texas Jewish Post (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 23, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 6, 2013

Weekly Jewish newspaper from Dallas, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with extensive advertising.
Date: June 6, 2013
Creator: Wisch-Ray, Sharon
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History