This dissertation explores the how external threat from militarized interstate disputes and interstate rivalries affect the relationship between the state and the ethnic groups within its borders. Specifically, it finds that national identity, the preservation of ethnic regional autonomy, and the formation of ethnic-based militias are all influenced by states involvement in international conflicts. In Sub Saharan Africa, discriminated groups are less likely to identify with their national identity and when the state is involved in an interstate dispute, while the rest of the country increases their likelihood to identify with the nation, discriminated groups cling to their ethnic identity. During and interstate rivalry, ethnic groups face a heightened risk of the state taking away their autonomy over a region. If the rivalry becomes too intense or the ethnic group shares kin with the rival, the ethnic group has lower chance of losing their autonomy during rivalry. Finally, ethnic minority seeking to form a militia are able to form one faster if their ethnic group is well represented in the military's rank and file or if their co-ethnics in the rank and file had combat experience in an interstate dispute were military force was used. Ethnic groups that are well …

This thesis attempts to prove the significance of the relationship between the United States and Australia, and how their similar cultures and experiences assisted creating that shared bond throughout the twentieth century. Chapter 2 examines the effects of the Cold War on both the United States and Australia, as well as their growing relationship during that period. There is some backtracking chronologically in order to make connections to important historical legacies such as the ANZAC Legend and settlement on the periphery of their respective societies. Then the first half of chapter 3 delves into the Vietnam War by examining the interactions of the American support unit, the 11th Combat Aviation Battalion, a helicopter unit that includes transports and gunships. Afterwards, the latter half of chapter 3 examines the Australians' after-action reports to better understand their tactical and operational methods. Finally, chapter 4 provides an overview of Australian and American interactions between the advisers and the Vietnamese, as well as their attitudes towards the end of the war and the withdrawal from Vietnam. The conclusion summarizes the significance of the thesis by reemphasizing the significance of US-Australian interactions in the twentieth century and the importance of continued studies on this topic …

In 1793, the British government embarked on a war against Revolutionary France that few expected would last twenty-five years and engulf all of Europe. Radical French policies provided an opportunity for William Pitt, the British prime minister, to endeavor to cobble a European alliance, including a number of Mediterranean states. These efforts never progressed beyond theory and negotiations because of conflicted policy and tension between the British diplomatic corps and Royal Navy over the strategic goals in the region. With diplomats focused on coalition building and military commanders focused on national objectives, British efforts never congealed into a unified effort to defeat Revolutionary France.

This dissertation is an examination of the interactions of enslaved body servants with their Texas Confederate masters from the American Civil War through the early twentieth century. The seven chapters of this study follows the story of these individuals from the fires of the Civil War, through the turbulence of Reconstruction in Texas, the codification of "Lost Cause" memory in the American South, and the exploitation of that memory by both former body servants and their ex-Confederate counterparts. This study demonstrates that the primary experience of blacks in the Confederate service was not as soldiers, but as enslaved laborers and body servants. Body servants, or camp slaves, were physically and in some cases emotionally close to their enslavers in this war-time environment and played an important part in Confederate logistics and camp life. As freed peoples after the war, former body servants found ways to use the bonds forged during the war and the flawed ideas of Lost Cause memory as a means to navigate the brutal realities of life in post-Civil War Texas. By manipulating white conceptions of former body servants as "black Confederates," some African Americans effectively "passed as gray," an act that earned money, social recognition, and …

This dissertation examines the behavior of post-civil war governments and explores how the aftermath of civil war not only influences state behavior but how the previous conflict becomes institutionalized through a state's governance decisions. While post-civil war states will each have different governance needs as they endure the post-conflict environment, this dissertation contends that the governance decisions a state chooses are key to understanding, and potentially predicting, future government behavior. Further, it is important to recognize the role that the previous civil war plays towards shaping a state's governance decisions and the opportunities available.

The United States entered World War I without a policy governing the burial of its overseas dead. Armed only with institutional knowledge from the Spanish-American War twenty years prior, the Army struggled to create a policy amidst social turmoil in the United States and political tension between France and the United States.

U.S. Marine George Burlage was part of the largest surrender in American history at Bataan and Corregidor in the spring of 1942, where the Japanese captured more than 85,000 troops. More than forty percent would not survive World War II. His prisoner-of-war ordeal began at Cabanatuan near Manila, where the death rate in the early months of World War II was fifty men a day. Sensing that Cabanatuan was a death trap, he managed to get transferred to the isolated island of Palawan to help build an airfield for his captors. Malaria and other tropical diseases caused him to be sent to Manila for treatment in 1943 (a year later, 139 of his fellow POWs were massacred on Palawan). After another year of building airfields, Burlage survived a 38-day voyage in the hull of a Japanese hell ship and ended the war as a miner for Mitsubishi in northern Japan. By sheer luck, strength, and a bit of sabotage, he survived and was freed in September 1945 after the Japanese surrendered. He had endured starvation and torture and lost half of his prewar weight, but no one had killed him. After the war Burlage became a journalist and wrote about …

From 1847 to 1891, Guy Morrison Bryan was a prominent Texas politician who influenced many of the policies and events that shaped the state. Raised in his Uncle Stephen F. Austin's shadow, he was a Texas nationalist who felt responsible for promoting the interests of his state, its earliest settlers, and his family. During his nineteen years in the Texas Legislature and two years in the United States House of Representatives, he safeguarded land grants, supported internal improvements and education, and challenged northern hostility towards slavery. Convinced that abolitionists would stop at nothing to destroy the institution and Texas, he led his state's walkout of the National Democratic Convention in 1860 and became a leading proponet of secession. During the Civil War, he served as a staff officer, and his ability to mediate conflicts between local and national leaders propped up the isolated Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department. Finally as Speaker of the House, he helped oust Governor Edmund J. Davis in 1874 and "redeem" the state from Republican rule before convincing President Rutherford B. Hayes to adopt a conciliatory policy towards Texas and the South. Despite the tremendous influence Bryan wielded, scholars have largely ignored his contributions. This dissertation establishes his …

Monthly newsletter published by the 12th Armored Division Association, discussing news related to the activities of the U.S. Army unit and updates on previous members of the division.

Book describes the three surrenders by Confederate armies that occurred after Robert E. Lee surrendered to U.S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. They included Joseph Johnston's to William Tecumseh Sherman; Richard Taylor's to Edward Canby; and the dissolution of the Trans-Mississippi Department under Edmund Kirby-Smith.

Gaius Julius Caesar remains one of the most studied characters of antiquity. His personality, political career, and military campaigns have garnered numerous scholarly treatments, as have his alleged aspirations to monarchy and divinity. However, comparatively little detailed work has been done to examine his own personal religiosity and even less attention has been paid to his religion in the context of his military conquests. I argue that Caesar has wrongly been deemed irreligious or skeptical and that his conduct while on campaign demonstrates that he was a religious man. Within the Roman system of religion, ritual participation was more important than faith or belief. Caesar pragmatically manipulated the Romans' flexible religious framework to secure military advantage almost entirely within the accepted bounds of religious conduct. If strict observance of ritual was the measure of Roman religiosity, then Caesar exceeded the religious expectations of his rank and office. The evidence reveals that he was an exemplar of Roman religio throughout both the Gallic Wars (58-51BC) and the subsequent Civil Wars (49-45BC).

The intention of this thesis is to identify and analyze the cat woman archetype as a contemporary extension of the transgressive witch archetype, which rampantly appears over the course of cinema history, working as a signifier of a patriarchal society's fear of autonomous and subversive women. The character of Catwoman is the ultimate representation for this archetype on grounds of her visibility, longevity, and ability to return again and again. More importantly, Catwoman and her sisterhood of cat women work against male creators as a means of female empowerment through trickery. Within this thesis, key films of varying genres are drawn from throughout cinema history and analyzed in order to demonstrate the intertextual network of characters that make up the cat woman archetype, and the importance of the Catwoman character in her many forms.

While Scotland was politically unified before the First Scottish War of Independence (1296-1328), it was only nominally so. Scotland shared a rich cultural unity amongst the clans, and it was only through the invasion from England, and the war that followed, that Scotland found a true political unity under King Robert the Bruce. This thesis argues that Scotland had a shared cultural identity, including the way it waged war, and how it came to be united under one king who brought a sense of nationalism to Scotland.

The story of Prussia's defeat at the Battles of Jena and Auerstedt and subsequent reform has dominated the historiography of Napoleonic Prussia. While Napoleon has received the vast majority of historical attention, those who have written on Prussia have focused on the Prussian reform movement or the Prussian army's campaigns against Napoleon. These historians present the Prussian army before 1807 as an ossified relic, a hopelessly backward and rigid army commanded by a series of septuagenarians. Apart from the 1806 campaign, these scholars scarcely address the field operations of the Prussian army during the French Wars (1792-1801). This thesis seeks to prove that the Prussian army during the War of the Bavarian Succession and the War of the First Coalition was still an effective fighting force by examining the field operation of the Prussian army from 1778-1793 and the reactions of Prussian thinkers to it. The history of the Prussian army from 1778-1806 challenges the narrative of the army as a force in decline. The Prussian army struggled in the War of the Bavarian Succession, and the war revealed two of its weaknesses, the lack of light troops and an uncoordinated strategic approach. However, many of the problems of the …

This dissertation addresses the puzzle of whether rebel group origins have an effect on rebel wartime behavior and the broader dynamics of civil conflict. Using a quantitative approach over three empirical chapters I study the relationship between rebel origins and conflict onset, duration and intensity, and wartime group capacity. Two qualitative cases examine the relationship between rebel origins, wartime group capacity, and adaptation during war, further unpacking the theoretical mechanisms linking group origins and conflict dynamics. I posit that rebel groups emerge from pre-existing organizations and networks that vary along military and civilian dimensions and condition the development of military and mobilization capacity of their successor insurgent groups. Groups with more developed militarization and mobilization mechanisms prior to conflict are likely to enter into civil conflict earlier in their existence and fight in longer and bloodier conflicts. I also find a strong relationship between origins characteristics and the development of military and civilian wartime capacity. Origins exert a strong legacy effect on the type and strength of intra-war capability, indicating that significant rebel adaptation is difficult.

Biannual publication "devoted to the rich history of Dallas and North Central Texas" as a way to "examine the many historical legacies--social, ethnic, cultural, political--which have shaped the modern city of Dallas and the region around it." The theme of this issue is "Tales from Two Cities."

Contained within is a sample, consisting of the first twelve chapters, which portray the final days of the fictional Polian War. The events are a springboard for the rest of the novel, and indeed the series.

From their founding in the 1820s up to the modern age, the Texas Rangers have shown the ability to adapt and survive. Part of that survival depended on their use of firearms. The evolving technology of these weapons often determined the effectiveness of these early day Rangers. John Coffee “Jack” Hays and Samuel Walker would leave their mark on the Rangers by incorporating new technology which allowed them to alter tactics when confronting their adversaries. The Frontier Battalion was created at about the same time as the Colt Peacemaker and the Winchester 73—these were the guns that “won the West.” Firearms of the Texas Rangers, with more than 180 photographs, tells the history of the Texas Rangers primarily through the use of their firearms. Author Doug Dukes narrates famous episodes in Ranger history, including Jack Hays and the Paterson, the Walker Colt, the McCulloch Colt Revolver (smuggled through the Union blockade during the Civil War), and the Frontier Battalion and their use of the Colt Peacemaker and Winchester and Sharps carbines. Readers will delight in learning of Frank Hamer’s marksmanship with his Colt Single Action Army and his Remington, along with Captain J.W. McCormick and his two .45 Colt pistols, …

Undergraduate thesis exploring modern American racism as the result of the nation's legacy of theological white supremacy and its deep-rooted racial issues that remain unresolved because of the theo-mythologies embedded at the core of the nation's foundational fabric that have been and continue to be largely unaccounted for in corrective racial discourse through a case study of Denton, Texas. By employing localized interdisciplinary methodological approaches aimed at unveiling the theo-myth which underscores the modern American racial ontology, this study examines how theological white supremacy was homogenized into popular culture in Denton County Texas following the Civil War via neo-Confederate Ku Klux Klan movement, which the author calls Ku Klux Konfederatism, that continues its influence today through localized theo-political institutions, sociocultural systems and cultural 'norms.'

Triweekly newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Biannual publication "devoted to the rich history of Dallas and North Central Texas" as a way to "examine the many historical legacies--social, ethnic, cultural, political--which have shaped the modern city of Dallas and the region around it." The theme of this issue is "Disasters: Natural and Man-Made."

King Edward I of England's castle building program in Wales from 1282 to 1295 provides a unique event that can be studied in further detail. Edward's castle building program turns the conquest of Wales into an early example of what future English colonization would become. By examining the building of Conwy and Caernarvon in Wales and the accompanying social programs we are better able to understand how the English viewed conquest and colonization. The conquest spent approximately £35,000 on the building of the castles of Conwy and Caernarvon, a colossal sum for the time. The reallocation of resources from England into Wales provide important similarities to later colonial endeavors, especially in the large application of manpower to build successful colonies. Another similarity becomes the split between the use of local raw resources such as the stone and timber combined with the need for manufactured goods brought from England. The social changes also had a major impact. The construction of Edward's castles Conwy and Caernarvon replaced iconic locations of Welsh power. The accompanying Statute of Wales (1284) changed the Welsh legal landscape and forced the English legal system on the Welsh. By replacing Welsh locations of power and instituting legal reform …

Weekly Jewish newspaper from Dallas, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with extensive advertising.

The Quebec of the Quiet Revolution invites a fascinating sociocultural study, and this analysis provides an overview of major changes there during the 1960s and 1970s. The author analyzes how artistic, literary, and musical contributions of the era reflected the public's sentiments toward this metamorphosis. References to political cartoons, plays, poetry, songs, and non-fiction works such as essays and manifestos illustrate attitudes toward the shifting role of the Catholic Church, the arrival of a Liberal government following an ultra-conservative administration, the feminist movement, economic and education reform, and the transformation of Quebec's identity through fierce debates over the status of French and English in the province. Policies enacted by Quebec Prime Ministers, especially Maurice Duplessis, Jean Lesage, and René Lévesque were pivotal to the emerging society. Events such as Vatican II, the publication of the Encyclical letter Humanae Vitae, and the efforts of Catholic Action revealed two concurrent strains of Catholicism present in Quebec and the extent to which the Church had become disconnected from society. This study examines major feminist aims within the historical and literary context and considers how collective efforts were critical to advancing their agenda. Ambitious economic measures enabled Quebec's francophone population to catch up to …