Although President Theodore Roosevelt intervened in the Dominican Republic in 1905 to prevent European creditor nations from securing a foothold at the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal, the idea persists among certain historians that Roosevelt's motives for intervention were primarily economic, not political. A close examination of Dominican economic history from the inauguration in 1882 of the tyrannical President Ulises Heureaux, combined with a study of American diplomacy toward the Dominican Republic to the initiation of the customs receivership in 1907, demonstrates that American policy attempted to thwart outside intervention, not promote economic subversion. Best primary sources are the State Department's Diplomatic Instructions, 1801-1906; the Despatches, 1883-1906; and Jacob H. Hollander's "Report" and "Exhibits." Excellent secondary sources are Dana G. MIunro's Caribbean studies.

Between 1830 and 1842, the United States coastwise slave trade raised several issues and provoked numerous debates in Congress. The purpose of this study is to determine the role of the coastwise slave trade and its effect upon attitudes toward slavery in Congress during this period. The primary sources used include official government documents, unpublished and published papers, correspondence, diaries, speeches, and memoirs. This study concludes that the issues raised by the coastwise slave trade crisis and debated in Congress between 1830 and 1842 contributed to the decline of southern dominance in national politics and provided abolitionists with a vital motivation of antislavery agitation in the United States Congress.

Although the German-American Bund received extensive press coverage during its existence and monographs of American politics in the 1930's refer to the Bund's activities, there has been no thorough examination of the charge that the Bund was a fifth column organization responsible to German authorities. This six-chapter study traces the Bund's history with an emphasis on determining the motivation of Bundists and the nature of the relationship between the Bund and the Third Reich. The conclusions are twofold. First, the Third Reich repeatedly discouraged the Bundists and attempted to dissociate itself from the Bund. Second, the Bund's commitment to Deutschtum through its endeavors to assist the German nation and the Third Reich contributed to American hatred of National Socialism.

As a part of the Texas National Guard, the Second Battalion of the 131st Field Artillery went on active duty as World War Two errupted and eventually became trapped in Java by Japanese forces. It became known as the Lost Battalion after its surrender because it lost all communication with the Allies for over three years. The Japanese forced these Americans to work in Burma on a railroad construction project connecting Burma to Thailand. After the railroad's completion in 1944, the Lost Battalion remained in various prisoner-of-war camps until liberation came in August, 1945. Research sources consulted include the prisoner-of-war project of the North Texas State University Oral History Collection, published memoirs of former captives, pertinent United States government documents, and contemporary newspapers. Secondary materials investigated embrace books and periodicals.

In the post-Civil War Southwest, the United States Army utilized civilians and Indians as scouts. As the mainstay of the reconnaissance force, enlisted Indians excelled as trackers, guides, and fighters. General George Crook became the foremost advocate of this service. A little-known aspect of the era was the international controversy created by the activities of native trackers under the 1882 reciprocal hot pursuit agreement between Mexico and the United States. Providing valuable information on Army scouts are numerous government records which include the Annual Report of the Secretary of War from 1866 to 1896 and Foreign Relations of the United States for 1883 and 1886. Memoirs, biographies, and articles in regional and national historical journals supplement government documents.

This study makes use not only of German documents captured during the Second World War but of personal accounts of major figures of the Third Reich and their testimony at the Nuremberg Trials. Organized into five chapters, this study surveys Nazi- Soviet relations from 1939 to 1941, from the German viewpoint, with emphasis on Adolf Hitler's assessment of Russian policies and Germany's wartime situation, both of which factors shaped his decision to invade the USSR. The conclusion is that Hitler saw his attack on the Soviet Union as a preventive war, carried out to destroy a growing threat to the Reich. He interpreted Russian activities during the period 1939-1941 as designed to strengthen the USSR strategically against Germany in preparation for intervention in the ongoing conflict with Britain.

This thesis examines the Egyptian and Sudanese policy of Gladstone's Second Ministry. Sources include microfilms of letters from the prime ministers to the Queen, and Cabinet papers. Essential were Hansard, The Times, and Herslet, as well as biographical and autobiographical studies of the persons involved. The thesis narrates the Egyptian events preceding the formation of Gladstone's Ministry. It then discusses the revolt in Egypt, which resulted in British occupation, and the Mahdi's rebellion in the Sudan, which led to the fall of Khartoum. The thesis concludes that Gladstone failed because he did not want Britain to be in Egypt or the Sudan. Therefore, there was no consistent policy, and his failures were among the elements that led to the fall of his Government.

This investigation deals with the underlying motivation of Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West. Sources include the published and translated works of Spengler: books, essays, and selected letters. Contingent areas of exploration, arranged in separate chapters, are the philosophy of history, using the works of Dilthey and Herder; philosophy, using the concepts of Husserl's Phenomenology, Bergson's Time and Free Will, and Goethe's Conversations with Eckermann; the contemporary human potential psychology of Abraham Mazlow and Rollo May, and the contemporary philosophy of Alan Watts and Ortega y Gasset. R. G. Collingwood as critic of Spengler is dealt with. The conclusion is drawn that Spengler did not attempt a system of history except as a vehicle for expressing a directive to live fully in the eternal now.