African American Soldiers in the Philippine War: An Examination of the Contributions of Buffalo Soldiers during the Spanish American War and Its Aftermath, 1898-1902 (open access)

African American Soldiers in the Philippine War: An Examination of the Contributions of Buffalo Soldiers during the Spanish American War and Its Aftermath, 1898-1902

During the Philippine War, 1899 – 1902, America attempted to quell an uprising from the Filipino people. Four regular army regiments of black soldiers, the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry, and the Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth Infantry served in this conflict. Alongside the regular army regiments, two volunteer regiments of black soldiers, the Forty-Eighth and Forty-Ninth, also served. During and after the war these regiments received little attention from the press, public, or even historians. These black regiments served in a variety of duties in the Philippines, primarily these regiments served on the islands of Luzon and Samar. The main role of these regiments focused on garrisoning sections of the Philippines and helping to end the insurrection. To carry out this mission, the regiments undertook a variety of duties including scouting, fighting insurgents and ladrones (bandits), creating local civil governments, and improving infrastructure. The regiments challenged racist notions in America in three ways. They undertook the same duties as white soldiers. They interacted with local "brown" Filipino populations without fraternizing, particularly with women, as whites assumed they would. And, they served effectively at the company and platoon level under black officers. Despite the important contributions of these soldiers, both socially and militarily, …
Date: August 2017
Creator: Redgraves, Christopher M.
System: The UNT Digital Library
“Campaigns Replete with Instruction”: Garnet Wolseley’s Civil War Observations and Their Effect on British Senior Staff College Training Prior to the Great War (open access)

“Campaigns Replete with Instruction”: Garnet Wolseley’s Civil War Observations and Their Effect on British Senior Staff College Training Prior to the Great War

This thesis addresses the importance of the American Civil War to nineteenth-century European military education, and its influence on British staff officer training prior to World War I. It focuses on Garnet Wolseley, a Civil War observer who eventually became Commander in Chief of the Forces of the British Army. In that position, he continued to write about the war he had observed a quarter-century earlier, and was instrumental in according the Civil War a key role in officer training. Indeed, he placed Stonewall Jackson historian G.F.R. Henderson in a key military professorship. The thesis examines Wolseley’s career and writings, as well as the extent to which the Civil War was studied at the Senior Staff College, in Camberly, after Wolseley’s influence had waned. Analysis of the curriculum from the College archives demonstrates that study of the Civil War diminished rapidly in the ten years prior to World War I.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Cohen, Bruce D.
System: The UNT Digital Library
From Associates to Antagonists: the United States, Great Britain, the First World War, and the Origins of War Plan Red, 1914-1919 (open access)

From Associates to Antagonists: the United States, Great Britain, the First World War, and the Origins of War Plan Red, 1914-1919

American military plans for a war with the British Empire, first discussed in 1919, have received varied treatment since their declassification. the most common theme among historians in their appraisals of WAR PLAN RED is that of an oddity. Lack of a detailed study of Anglo-American relations in the immediate post-First World War years makes a right understanding of the difficult relationship between the United States and Britain after the War problematic. As a result of divergent aims and policies, the United States and Great Britain did not find the diplomatic and social unity so many on both sides of the Atlantic aspired to during and immediately after the First World War. Instead, United States’ civil and military organizations came to see the British Empire as a fierce and potentially dangerous rival, worthy of suspicion, and planned accordingly. Less than a year after the end of the War, internal debates and notes discussed and circulated between the most influential members of the United States Government, coalesced around a premise that became the rationale for WAR PLAN RED. Ample evidence reveals that contrary to the common narrative of “Anglo-American” and “Atlanticist” historians of the past century, the First World War did …
Date: May 2012
Creator: Gleason, Mark C.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Endogenous Information and Inter-state War Expansion (open access)

Endogenous Information and Inter-state War Expansion

Scholars have long debated the causes of late third party state joining in ongoing inter-state wars. This research has generally concluding that peace-time conditions, measured in terms of: third party capabilities; proximity to warring states; and inter-state alliances, are determining factors in the decision to join. However, these studies utilize theories derived from static pre-war measures of capabilities and motivation to explain late joining; indeed, the same measures that fail to predict participation at war's outset. Further, extant research has no explanation for why weak and non-proximate states every participate. Existing theory thus fails to provide a comprehensive explanation of joining behavior. This project contends that a resolution lies the interaction between pre-war conditions and intra-war events. Intra-war events that are allowed to vary on a per battle basis, including change in combat location and alliance entry and exit from combat, reveal new information about the war and its progress, thereby forcing third party states to recalculate their initial decision to abstain in relation to their pre-existing situation. Incorporation of intra-war processes helps to better explain decisions by third party states to join ongoing inter-state wars late in their development, and why states that frequently choose to abstain (e.g., weak …
Date: December 2012
Creator: Liebel, Steven R.
System: The UNT Digital Library
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
System: The UNT Digital Library
Let the Dogs Bark: The Psychological War in Vietnam, 1960-1968 (open access)

Let the Dogs Bark: The Psychological War in Vietnam, 1960-1968

Between 1960 and 1968 the United States conducted intensive psychological operations (PSYOP) in Vietnam. To date, no comprehensive study of the psychological war there has been conducted. This dissertation fills that void, describing the development of American PSYOP forces and their employment in Vietnam. By looking at the complex interplay of American, North Vietnamese, National Liberation Front (NLF) and South Vietnamese propaganda programs, a deeper understanding of these activities and the larger war emerges. The time period covered is important because it comprises the initial introduction of American PSYOP advisory forces and the transition to active participation in the war. It also allows enough time to determine the long-term effects of both the North Vietnamese/NLF and American/South Vietnamese programs. Ending with the 1968 Tet Offensive is fitting because it marks both a major change in the war and the establishment of the 4th Psychological Operations Group to manage the American PSYOP effort. This dissertation challenges the argument that the Northern/Viet Cong program was much more effective that the opposing one. Contrary to common perceptions, the North Vietnamese propaganda increasingly fell on deaf ears in the south by 1968. This study also provides support for understanding the Tet Offensive as a …
Date: May 2016
Creator: Roberts, Mervyn Edwin, III
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
System: The UNT Digital Library
Competing Models of Hegemonic Masculinity in English Civil War Memoirs by Women (open access)

Competing Models of Hegemonic Masculinity in English Civil War Memoirs by Women

This thesis examines the descriptions of Royalist and Parliamentarian masculinity in English Civil War memoirs by women through a close reading of three biographical memoirs written by Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle; Lady Ann Fanshawe; and Lucy Hutchinson. Descriptions of masculinity are evaluated through the lens of Raewyn Connell's theory of hegemonic masculinity to understand the impact two competing models of masculinity had on the social and political culture of the period. The prevailing Parliamentarian hegemonic masculinity in English Civil War memoirs is traced to its origins before the English Civil War to demonstrate how hegemonic masculinity changes over time. The thesis argues that these memoirs provide evidence of two competing models of Royalist and Parliamentarian masculinities during the Civil War that date back to changes in the Puritan meaning of the phrase “man of merit”, which influenced the development of a Parliamentarian model of masculinity.
Date: December 2015
Creator: Du Bon-Atmai, Evelyn
System: The UNT Digital Library
Clenching the Fists of Dissent: Political Unrest, Repression, and the Evolution to Civil War (open access)

Clenching the Fists of Dissent: Political Unrest, Repression, and the Evolution to Civil War

Previous scholarship has long concentrated on the behaviors of belligerents during regime-dissident interactions. While much of the progress in the literature concentrated on the micro-level processes of this relationship, little research has focused on providing a theoretical reasoning on why belligerents choose to act in a particular manner. This project attempts to open the black box of decision making for regimes and dissidents during regime-dissident interactions in order to provide a theoretical justification for the behaviors of the belligerents involved. Moreover, this project argues that there is a relationship between the lower level events of political violence and civil war as the events at earlier stages of the conflict influence the possible outcome of civil conflict. Regimes and dissidents alike are strategic actors who conduct themselves in a manner to ensure their survival while concurrently attempting to succeed at achieving their respective goals. Although all authoritarian regimes are similar in their differences to democracies, there are significant differences between the regimes, which influence the decision making of the regime leader to ensure the survival of the political institution. In addition to influencing the decision calculus of the regimes, the behavior of the regimes impacts the probability of civil war at …
Date: August 2016
Creator: Backstrom, Jeremy R.
System: The UNT Digital Library

The Forty-fifth Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment: the Washburne Lead Mine Regiment in the Civil War

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Of the roughly 3,500 volunteer regiments and batteries organized by the Union army during the American Civil War, only a small fraction has been studied in any scholarly depth. Among those not yet examined by historians was one that typified the western armies commanded by the two greatest Federal generals, Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman. The Forty-fifth Illinois Volunteer Infantry was at Fort Donelson and Shiloh with Grant in 1862, with Grant and Sherman during the long Vicksburg campaign of 1862 and 1863, and with Sherman in the Meridian, Atlanta, Savannah, and Carolinas campaigns in the second half of the war. These Illinois men fought in several of the most important engagements in the western theater of the war and, in the spring of 1865, were present when the last important Confederate army in the east surrendered. The Forty-fifth was also well connected in western politics. Its unofficial name was the “Washburne Lead Mine Regiment,” in honor of U.S Representative Elihu B. Washburne, who used his contacts and influences to arm the regiment with the best weapons and equipment available early in the war. (The Lead Mine designation referred to the mining industry in northern Illinois.) In addition, …
Date: December 2015
Creator: Mack, Thomas B., 1965-
System: The UNT Digital Library
Soldier Boys of Texas: The Seventh Texas Infantry in World War I (open access)

Soldier Boys of Texas: The Seventh Texas Infantry in World War I

This study first offers a political, social, and economic overview of Texas during the first two decades of the twentieth century, including reaction in the Lone Star state to the declaration of war against Germany in April, 1917; the fear of saboteurs and foreign-born citizens; and the debate on raising a wartime army through a draft or by volunteerism. Then, focusing in-depth on northwest Texas, the study examines the Texas National Guard unit recruited there, the Seventh Texas Infantry Regiment. Using primarily the selective service registration cards of a sample of 1,096 members of the regiment, this study presents a portrait of the officers and enlisted soldiers of the Seventh Texas based on age, occupation, marital status, dependents and other criteria, something that has not been done in studies of World War I soldiers. Next, the regiment's training at Camp Bowie, near Fort Worth, Texas, is described, including the combining of the Seventh Texas with the First Oklahoma Infantry to form the 142nd Infantry Regiment of the Thirty-Sixth Division. After traveling to France and undergoing nearly two months of training, the regiment was assigned to the French Fourth Army in the Champagne region and went into combat for the first …
Date: August 2010
Creator: Ball, Gregory W.
System: The UNT Digital Library
New Rules to an Old Game: Electoral Reforms and Post-Civil War Stability (open access)

New Rules to an Old Game: Electoral Reforms and Post-Civil War Stability

One of the most common features found within peace agreements are provisions that call for post-civil war elections. Unfortunately, recent research on post-civil war stability has consistently demonstrated that the initial elections held after civil wars significantly increases the risk for renewed fighting. While this research does highlight a danger posed by post-war elections, it focuses only on one element associated with post-civil war democracy. I argue that by implementing electoral reforms that are called for in peace agreements, post-war countries reduce the risk of renewed civil war. Implementing these peace agreement provisions increases the durability of post-war peace in two ways. First, by implementing costly electoral reforms called for in the peace agreement, the government signals a credible commitment to the peace process which reduces security dilemmas faced by opposition groups. Second, electoral reforms generate new avenues for political participation for disaffected citizens, which reduces the ability of hardliners to mobilize future armed opposition. I examine how implementing post-war electoral reforms impact the risk of renewed conflict from 1989 through 2010. Using duration models, I demonstrate that implementing these electoral reforms substantially reduces the risk of renewed conflict.
Date: August 2016
Creator: Keels, Eric
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Portuguese Expeditionary Corps in World War I: From Inception to Destruction, 1914-1918 (open access)

The Portuguese Expeditionary Corps in World War I: From Inception to Destruction, 1914-1918

The Portuguese Expeditionary Force fought in the trenches of northern France from April 1917 to April 1918. on 9 April 1918 the sledgehammer blow of Operation Georgette fell upon the exhausted Portuguese troops. British accounts of the Portuguese Corps’ participation in combat on the Western Front are terse. Many are dismissive. in fact, Portuguese units experienced heavy combat and successfully held their ground against all attacks. Regarding Georgette, the standard British narrative holds that most of the Portuguese soldiers threw their weapons aside and ran. the account is incontrovertibly false. Most of the Portuguese combat troops held their ground against the German assault. This thesis details the history of the Portuguese Expeditionary Force.
Date: May 2012
Creator: Pyles, Jesse
System: The UNT Digital Library
Miscegenated Narration: The Effects of Interracialism in Women's Popular Sentimental Romances from the Civil War Years (open access)

Miscegenated Narration: The Effects of Interracialism in Women's Popular Sentimental Romances from the Civil War Years

Critical work on popular American women's fiction still has not reckoned adequately with the themes of interracialism present in these novels and with interracialism's bearing on the sentimental. This thesis considers an often overlooked body of women's popular sentimental fiction, published from 1860-1865, which is interested in themes of interracial romance or reproduction, in order to provide a fuller picture of the impact that the intersection of interracialism and sentimentalism has had on American identity. By examining the literary strategy of "miscegenated narration," or the heteroglossic cacophony of narrative voices and ideological viewpoints that interracialism produces in a narrative, I argue that the hegemonic ideologies of the sentimental romance are both "deterritorialized" and "reterritorialized," a conflicted impulse that characterizes both nineteenth-century sentimental, interracial romances and the broader project of critiquing the dominant national narrative that these novels undertake.
Date: May 2011
Creator: Beeler, Connie
System: The UNT Digital Library
Post-Civil War Democratization: Domestic and International Factors in Movement Toward and Away from Democracy (open access)

Post-Civil War Democratization: Domestic and International Factors in Movement Toward and Away from Democracy

Post-civil war democratization is a critical element of building sustainable peace in the post-civil war states. At the same time, studies of democratic transition and survival suggest that the post-civil war environment is not hospitable to either the transition to or survival of democracy. The post-civil war environment is contentious. Former protagonists are fearful about their security and at the same time they want to protect their political and economic interests. The central argument of this study is that former rivals can agree to a transition toward democracy to the extent that a stable balance of power exists between the government and rebel groups, a balance that eliminates the sort of security dilemma that would encourage one or both to resume armed conflict. And the balance should ensure access to political power and economic resources. This study identifies factors that contribute to the establishment of such a balance of power between former protagonists and factors that affects its stability. These factors should affect the decision of former protagonists on whether or not they can achieve their political and economic interests if they agree to a transition toward democracy once civil war ends. Factors that are conducive to a transition toward …
Date: May 2010
Creator: Joshi, Madhav
System: The UNT Digital Library
Service Honest and Faithful: The Thirty-Third Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Philippine War, 1899-1901 (open access)

Service Honest and Faithful: The Thirty-Third Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Philippine War, 1899-1901

This manuscript is a study of the Thirty-Third Infantry, United States Volunteers, a regiment that was recruited in Texas, the South, and the Midwest and was trained by officers experienced from the Indian Wars and the Spanish-American War. This regiment served as a front-line infantry unit and then as a constabulary force during the Philippine War from 1899 until 1901. While famous in the United States as a highly effective infantry regiment during the Philippine War, the unit's fame and the lessons that it offered American war planners faded in time and were overlooked in favor of conventional fighting. In addition, the experiences of the men of the regiment belie the argument that the Philippine War was a brutal and racist imperial conflict akin to later interventions such as the Vietnam War. An examination of the Thirty-Third Infantry thus provides valuable context into a war not often studied in the United States and serves as a successful example of a counterinsurgency.
Date: December 2017
Creator: Andersen, Jack David
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
System: The UNT Digital Library

The Rise and Fall of the Greenback Party in Texas: Economic Change and Political Dissent in the Post-Civil War Era

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In 1873, a financial crisis plunged the United States into a deep economic depression that exacerbated a number of post-war economic issues. By the late 1870s, political dissent centered primarily on financial issues merged into the Greenback movement, which represented a loose coalition of reformers calling for economic relief based on the expanded use of greenbacks (paper currency issued by the United States Treasury during the Civil War). The Greenback Party emerged as a direct response to federal financial policies, but in Texas, it also provided a broad political platform for those opposed to the policies of "Redeemer/Bourbon" Democrats. The Greenback Party of Texas brought together a wide range of dissenters, including disgruntled Democrats, ousted Republicans, and many different economic and social reformers. From 1876, when the first Greenback clubs appeared in Texas, to the Greenback Party's virtual disappearance after the election of 1884, the Texas Greenbackers reached across boundaries of section, race, class, and sometimes gender; brought together farmers, workers, and professionals; Southerners and Northerners, white and black; former Confederates and former Unionists; native-born Americans and immigrants; and received sizable support from multiple counties in the northern, eastern, and central part of the state. In spite of its short …
Date: December 2019
Creator: Sinclair, Cameron L.
System: The UNT Digital Library
International Learning and the Diffusion of Civil Conflict (open access)

International Learning and the Diffusion of Civil Conflict

Why does civil conflict spread from country to country? Existing research relies primarily on explanations of rebel mobilization tied to geographic proximity to explain this phenomenon. However, this approach is unable to explain why civil conflict appears to spread across great geographic distances, and also neglects the government’s role in conflict. To explain this phenomenon, this dissertation formulates an informational theory in which individuals contemplating rebellion against their government, or “proto-rebels,” observe the success and failure of rebels throughout the international system. In doing so, proto-rebels and governments learn whether rebellion will be fruitful, which is then manifested in the timing of rebellion and repression. The core of the dissertation is composed of three essays. The first exhorts scholars of the international spread of civil violence to directly measure proto-rebel mobilization. I show that such mobilization is associated with conflicts across the entire international system, while the escalation to actual armed conflict is associated with regional conflicts. The second chapter theorizes that proto-rebels learn from successful rebellions across the international system. This relationship applies globally, although it is attenuated by cultural and regime-type similarity. Finally, the third chapter theorizes that governments are aware of this process and engage in repression …
Date: August 2014
Creator: Linebarger, Christopher
System: The UNT Digital Library
Prison Productions: Textiles and Other Military Supplies from State Penitentiaries in the Trans-Mississippi Theater during the American Civil War (open access)

Prison Productions: Textiles and Other Military Supplies from State Penitentiaries in the Trans-Mississippi Theater during the American Civil War

This thesis examines the state penitentiaries of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas that became sources of wartime supplies during the Civil War. A shortage of industry in the southwest forced the Confederacy to use all manufactories efficiently. Penitentiary workshops and textile mills supplied a variety of cloth, wood, and iron products, but have received minimal attention in studies of logistics. Penitentiary textile mills became the largest domestic supplier of cloth to Confederate quartermasters, aid societies, citizens, slaves, and indigent families. This study examines how penitentiary workshops converted to wartime production and determines their contribution to the Confederate war effort. The identification of those who produced, purchased, distributed, and used penitentiary goods will enhance our knowledge of overall Confederate supply.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Derbes, Brett J.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Conquering the Natural Frontier: French Expansion to the Rhine River During the War of the First Coalition, 1792-1797 (open access)

Conquering the Natural Frontier: French Expansion to the Rhine River During the War of the First Coalition, 1792-1797

After conquering Belgium and the Rhineland in 1794, the French Army of the Sambre and Meuse faced severe logistical, disciplinary, and morale problems that signaled the erosion of its capabilities. The army’s degeneration resulted from a revolution in French foreign policy designed to conquer the natural frontiers, a policy often falsely portrayed as a diplomatic tradition of the French monarchy. In fact, the natural frontiers policy – expansion to the Rhine, the Pyrenees, and the Alps – emerged only after the start of the War of the First Coalition in 1792. Moreover, the pursuit of natural frontiers caused more controversy than previously understood. No less a figure than Lazare Carnot – the Organizer of Victory – viewed French expansion to the Rhine as impractical and likely to perpetuate war. While the war of conquest provided the French state with the resources to survive, it entailed numerous unforeseen consequences. Most notably, the Revolutionary armies became isolated from the nation and displayed more loyalty to their commanders than to the civilian authorities. In 1797, the Sambre and Meuse Army became a political tool of General Lazare Hoche, who sought control over the Rhineland by supporting the creation of a Cisrhenan Republic. Ultimately, …
Date: December 2015
Creator: Hayworth, Jordan R.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Ruinous Pride: The Construction of the Scottish Military Identity, 1745-1918 (open access)

Ruinous Pride: The Construction of the Scottish Military Identity, 1745-1918

Following the failed Jacobite Rebellion of 1745-46 many Highlanders fought for the British Army in the Seven Years War and American Revolutionary War. Although these soldiers were primarily motivated by economic considerations, their experiences were romanticized after Waterloo and helped to create a new, unified Scottish martial identity. This militaristic narrative, reinforced throughout the nineteenth century, explains why Scots fought and died in disproportionately large numbers during the First World War.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Matheson, Calum Lister
System: The UNT Digital Library

Who is Who in Zimbabwe's Armed Revolution? Representation of the ZAPU/ZIPRA and the ZANU/ZANLA in High School History Textbooks Narratives of the Liberation War

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The liberation war was a watershed event in the history of Zimbabwe. According to the ZANU PF (Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front) ruling elites, an understanding of the common experiences of the people during the liberation war provides the best opportunity to mold a common national identity and consciousness. However, the representation of important historical events in a nation's history is problematic. At best events are manipulated for political purposes by the ruling elites, and at the worst they are distorted or exaggerated. In Zimbabwe, the representation of the ZAPU/ZIPRA and the ZANU/ZANLA as liberation movements in high school history textbooks during the armed struggle is a hot potato. This study critically examined and explored the contested "representational practices" of the ZAPU/ZIPRA and the ZANU/ZANLA as liberation movements during the Zimbabwean armed revolution. By means of qualitative content analysis, seven high school history textbooks from Zimbabwe were analyzed. Drawing from postcolonial perspectives and insights, particularly Fanon's concept of the pitfall of national consciousness, the study unveiled the way in which Zimbabwean high school textbooks portrayed the ZAPU/ZIPRA and the ZANU/ZANLA as very different liberation movements whose roles and contributions were unequal. High school textbooks depicted the ZANU/ZANLA as a …
Date: May 2019
Creator: Sibanda, Lovemore
System: The UNT Digital Library
Establishing the American Way of Death: World War I and the Foundation of the United States’ Policy Toward the Repatriation and Burial of Its Battlefield Dead (open access)

Establishing the American Way of Death: World War I and the Foundation of the United States’ Policy Toward the Repatriation and Burial of Its Battlefield Dead

This thesis examines the policies and procedures created during and after the First World War that provided the foundation for how the United States commemorated its war dead for the next century. Many of the techniques used in modern times date back to the Great War. However, one hundred years earlier, America possessed very few methods or even ideas about how to locate, identify, repatriate, and honor its military personnel that died during foreign conflicts. These ideas were not conceived in the halls of government buildings. On the contrary, concerned citizens originated many of the concepts later codified by the American government. This paper draws extensively upon archival documents, newspapers, and published primary sources to trace the history of America’s burial and repatriation policies, the Army Graves Registration Services, and how American dead came to permanently rest in military cemeteries on the continent of Europe. The unprecedented dilemma of over 80,000 American soldiers buried in France and surrounding countries at the conclusion of the First World War in 1918 propelled the United States to solve many social, political, and military problems that arose over the final disposition of those remains. The solutions to those problems became the foundation for how …
Date: August 2015
Creator: Hatzinger, Kyle J.
System: The UNT Digital Library