Degree Discipline

Restore, Reform, React, Revolt: Leopold II and the Risorgimento in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, 1814-1859 (open access)

Restore, Reform, React, Revolt: Leopold II and the Risorgimento in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, 1814-1859

The Risorgimento or "resurrection" of Italy united a collection of independent Italian kingdoms, duchies, and principalities under the auspices of the Piedmontese House of Savoy. No longer was Italy a mere expression géographique, as Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich snidely remarked in 1847, but a united nation state. Studies of the Risorgimento successfully highlight the role of famous Piedmontese and Italian nationalists in demonstrating the success of the movement. However, the smaller states of the peninsula have largely disappeared from these histories. Among these overlooked states is the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and Tuscany's last grand duke, Leopold II of Habsburg-Lorraine. Both are consistently omitted from broader surveys of the peninsula. In rare situations when Leopold II enters the historical narrative he is dismissed as a reactionary, although he maintained a reputation as an enlightened and relatively liberal ruler for the majority of his rule. Especially in anglophone literature, little to no discussion of his thirty-five-year reign is available. This omission creates an unfortunate lacuna in the historiography of the Risorgimento. It is in studies of these smaller Italian states that the intricacies of statecraft, nationalism, and localism are most visible. To understand the extent of the Risorgimento's success, it …
Date: May 2021
Creator: Parkey, Rachel E.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Austrian Army in the War of the Sixth Coalition: A Reassessment (open access)

The Austrian Army in the War of the Sixth Coalition: A Reassessment

The Austrian army played a crucial role in Napoleon's decisive defeat during the War of the Sixth Coalition. Often considered a staid, hidebound institution, the army showed considerable adaptation in a time that witnessed a revolution in the art of war. In particular, changes made after defeat in the War of the Fifth Coalition demonstrate the modernity of the army. It embraced the key features of the new revolutionary way of war, including mass mobilization, a strategy of annihilation, and tactics based on deep echelonment, mobility, and the flexible use of varied formations. While the Austrians did not achieve the compromise peace they desired in 1814, this represented a political failing rather than a military one. Nevertheless, the Austrian army was critical in securing the century of general European peace that lasted until the dawn of the Great War.
Date: December 2020
Creator: Messman, Daniel M
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Duality of the Hitler Youth: Ideological Indoctrination and Premilitary Education (open access)

The Duality of the Hitler Youth: Ideological Indoctrination and Premilitary Education

This thesis examines the National Socialists' ultimate designs for Germany's youth, conveniently organized within the Hitlerjugend. Prevailing scholarship portrays the Hitler Youth as a place for ideological indoctrination and activities akin to the modern Boy Scouts. Furthermore, it often implies that the Hitler Youth was paramilitary but always lacks support for this claim. These claims are not incorrect, but in regard to the paramilitary nature of the organization, they do not delve nearly deeply enough. The National Socialists ultimately desired to consolidate their control over the nation and to prepare the nation for a future war. Therefore, they needed to simultaneously indoctrinate German youth, securing the future existence of National Socialism but also ensuring that German youth carry out their orders and defend Germany, and train the youth in premilitary skills, deliberately attempting to increase the quality of the Wehrmacht and furnish it with a massive, trained reserve in case of war. This paper relies on published training manuals, translated propaganda, memoirs of former Hitler Youth members and secondary literature to examine the form and extent of the ideological indoctrination and premilitary training--which included the general Hitler Youth, special Hitler Youth subdivisions, military preparedness camps akin to boot camp, and …
Date: December 2016
Creator: Miller, Aaron Michael
System: The UNT Digital Library
Early Educational Reform in North Germany: its Effects on Post-Reformation German Intellectuals (open access)

Early Educational Reform in North Germany: its Effects on Post-Reformation German Intellectuals

Martin Luther supported the development of the early German educational system on the basis of both religious and social ideals. His impact endured in the emphasis on obedience and duty to the state evident in the north German educational system throughout the early modern period and the nineteenth century. Luther taught that the state was a gift from God and that service to the state was a personal vocation. This thesis explores the extent to which a select group of nineteenth century German philosophers and historians reflect Luther's teachings. Chapters II and III provide historiography on this topic, survey Luther's view of the state and education, and demonstrate the adherence of nineteenth century German intellectuals to these goals. Chapters IV through VII examine the works respectively of Johann Gottfried Herder, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Leopold von Ranke, and Wilhelm Dilthey, with focus on the interest each had in the reformer's work for its religious, and social content. The common themes found in these authors' works were: the analysis of the membership of the individual in the group, the stress on the uniqueness of individual persons and cultures, the belief that familial authority, as established in the Fourth Commandment, provided the …
Date: December 1994
Creator: Peterson, Rebecca C. (Rebecca Carol)
System: The UNT Digital Library
The German Submarine Cables and United States Diplomacy, 1914-1927 (open access)

The German Submarine Cables and United States Diplomacy, 1914-1927

Immediately after the outbreak of the World War, Great Britain, France and Japan cut the German submarine cables which were situated in the different oceans of the world. The study of the submarine cables during the World War and its aftermath is a complex problem. To understand the post-war negotiations, previous international agreements, treaties and the ownership, operation and financing of the cables must be understood.
Date: January 1967
Creator: Marusak, Leonard Francis
System: The UNT Digital Library
Ethnogenesis and Captivity: Structuring Transatlantic Difference in the Early Republic, 1776-1823 (open access)

Ethnogenesis and Captivity: Structuring Transatlantic Difference in the Early Republic, 1776-1823

This study seeks to understand the development of early American ideas of race, religion, and gender as reflected in Indian and Barbary captivity narratives (tales of individuals taken captive by privateers in North Africa) and in plays that take American captives as their subject. Writers of both Indian and Barbary captivity narratives used racial and religious language – references to Indians and North Africans as demonic, physically monstrous, and animal – simultaneously to delineate Native American and North African otherness. The narrative writers reserved particular scorn for the figure of the Renegade – the willful cultural convert who chose to live among the Native Americans or adopt Islam and live among his North African captors. The narratives, too, reflect Early American gendered norms by defining the role of men as heads of household and women’s protectors, and by defining women by their status as dutiful wives and mothers. Furthermore, the narratives carefully treat the figure of the female captive with particular care – resisting implications of captive rape, even while describing graphic scenes of physical torture, and denying the possibility of willful transcultural sexual relationships.
Date: August 2013
Creator: Siddiqi, M. Omar
System: The UNT Digital Library
Locofocos, Van Buren Democrats and Progress (open access)

Locofocos, Van Buren Democrats and Progress

An investigation of the origins and history of the Locofoco party, with particular emphasis upon the divergent theories which made up its heterogeneous ideology, is the first object of this study. A comparison can be made between this ideology and the national administration by studying the developments that took place in 1837 and by evaluating the reasons for the ultimate defeat of the Van Buren Democrats three years later.
Date: August 1970
Creator: Levisay, David Allen
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Fashoda Crisis: A Survey of Anglo-French Imperial Policy on the Upper Nile Question, 1882-1899 (open access)

The Fashoda Crisis: A Survey of Anglo-French Imperial Policy on the Upper Nile Question, 1882-1899

The present study is a survey of Anglo-French imperial, policies on the Upper Nile question and the Fashoda Crisis which resulted, and it is an attempt to place this conflict within the framework of the "new imperialism" after 1870.
Date: December 1971
Creator: Goode, James Hubbard, 1924-
System: The UNT Digital Library
Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, comte de Guibert: Father of the Grande Armée (open access)

Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, comte de Guibert: Father of the Grande Armée

The eighteenth century was a time of intense upheaval in France. The death of Louis XIV in 1715 and the subsequent reign of Louis XV saw the end of French political and martial hegemony on the continent. While French culture and language remained dominant in Europe, Louis XV's disinterested rule and military stagnation led to the disastrous defeat of the French army at the hands of Frederick the Great of Prussia in the Seven Years War (1756-1763). The battle of Rossbach marked the nadir of the French army in the Seven Years War. Frederick's army routed the French infantry that had bumbled its way into massed Prussian cavalry. Following the war, two reformist elements emerged in the army. Reformers within the government, chiefly Etienne François, duc de Choiseul, sought to rectify the army's poor performance and reconstitute France's military establishment. Outside the traditional army structure, military thinkers looked to military theory to reinvigorate the army from within and without. Foremost among the latter was a young officer named Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte de Guibert, whose 1772 Essai général de tactique quickly became the most celebrated work of theory in European military circles. The Essai provided a new military constitution for France, proposing wholesale …
Date: May 2011
Creator: Abel, Jonathan, 1985-
System: The UNT Digital Library
The German Response to American Diplomacy, 1939-1941 (open access)

The German Response to American Diplomacy, 1939-1941

This thesis explores German responses to United States diplomatic actions during the period, 1939-1941. The history and events involving Europe prior to World War II are discussed.
Date: January 1966
Creator: Ruckle, Kenneth Val
System: The UNT Digital Library
Exposing the Spectacular Body: The Wheel, Hanging, Impaling, Placarding, and Crucifixion in the Ancient World (open access)

Exposing the Spectacular Body: The Wheel, Hanging, Impaling, Placarding, and Crucifixion in the Ancient World

This dissertation brings the Ancient Near Eastern practice of the wheel, hanging, impaling, placarding, and crucifixion (WHIPC) into the scholarship of crucifixion, which has been too dominated by the Greek and Roman practice. WHIPC can be defined as the exposure of a body via affixing, by any means, to a structure, wooden or otherwise, for public display (Chapter 2). Linguistic analysis of relevant sources in several languages (including Egyptian hieroglyphics, Sumerian, Hebrew, Hittite, Old Persian, all phases of ancient Greek, and Latin) shows that because of imprecise terminology, any realistic definition of WHIPC must be broad (Chapter 3). Using methodologies and interdisciplinary approaches drawn from art history, archaeology, linguistic analysis, and digital humanities, this work analyzes scattered but abundant evidence to piece together theories about who was crucified, when, how, where, and why. The dissertation proves that WHIPC records, written and visual, were kept for three primary functions: to advertise power, to punish and deter, and to perform magical rituals or fulfill religious obligations. Manifestations of these three functions come through WHIPC in mythology (see especially Chapter 4), trophies (Chapter 5), spectacles, propaganda, political commentary, executions, corrective torture, behavior modification or prevention, donative sacrifices, scapegoat offerings, curses, and healing rituals. …
Date: December 2017
Creator: Foust, Kristan Ewin
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Phantom Menace: the F-4 in Air Combat in Vietnam (open access)

The Phantom Menace: the F-4 in Air Combat in Vietnam

The F-4 Phantom II was the United States' primary air superiority fighter aircraft during the Vietnam War. This airplane epitomized American airpower doctrine during the early Cold War, which diminished the role of air-to-air combat and the air superiority mission. As a result, the F-4 struggled against the Soviet MiG fighters used by the North Vietnamese Air Force. By the end of the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign in 1968, the Phantom traded kills with MiGs at a nearly one-to-one ratio, the worst air combat performance in American history. The aircraft also regularly failed to protect American bombing formations from MiG attacks. A bombing halt from 1968 to 1972 provided a chance for American planners to evaluate their performance and make changes. The Navy began training pilots specifically for air combat, creating the Navy Fighter Weapons School known as "Top Gun" for this purpose. The Air Force instead focused on technological innovation and upgrades to their equipment. The resumption of bombing and air combat in the 1972 Linebacker campaigns proved that the Navy's training practices were effective, while the Air Force's technology changes were not, with kill ratios becoming worse. However, the last three months of the campaign introduced an American …
Date: August 2013
Creator: Hankins, Michael W.
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Historiographical Study of Thomas Jefferson (open access)

A Historiographical Study of Thomas Jefferson

This thesis is a historiographical study of Thomas Jefferson.
Date: 1958
Creator: Bridges, David L.
System: The UNT Digital Library
My Crown Is in My Heart, Not on My Head: Heart Burial in England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire From Medieval Times to the Present (open access)

My Crown Is in My Heart, Not on My Head: Heart Burial in England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire From Medieval Times to the Present

Heart burial is a funerary practice that has been performed since the early medieval period. However, relatively little scholarship has been published on it in English. Heart burial began as a pragmatic way to preserve a body, but it became a meaningful tradition in Western Europe during the medieval and early modern periods. In an anthropological context, the ritual served the needs of elites and the societies they governed. Elites used heart burial not only to preserve their bodies, but to express devotion, stabilize the social order and advocate legitimacy, and even gain heaven. Heart burial assisted in the elite Christian, his or her family, and society pass through the liminal period of death. Over the centuries, heart burial evolved to remain relevant. The practice is extant to the present day, though the motivations behind it are very different from those of the medieval and early modern periods.
Date: May 2013
Creator: Duch, Anna M.
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Revolution in Warfare?  the Army of the Sambre and Meuse and the 1794 Fleurus Campaign (open access)

A Revolution in Warfare? the Army of the Sambre and Meuse and the 1794 Fleurus Campaign

During the War of the First Coalition, the Army of the Sambre and Meuse, commanded by Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, played the decisive role against Coalition forces in the Low Countries. Created in June 1794, the army defeated the Allies at the battle of Second Fleurus on 26 June 1794 and commenced the Coalition’s retreat to the Rhine River. At the end of the year, Jourdan led the army to winter quarters along the left bank of the Rhine and achieved France’s historically momentous “natural frontier.” Despite its historical significance, the Army of the Sambre and Meuse has suffered from scant historical attention. Based largely on archival research, this thesis provides a detailed examination of the army’s performance during the Fleurus campaign. In addition, this thesis pursues several broader themes. A detailed study of the Sambre and Meuse Army provides insight into institutional military change during the late eighteenth century. While historians traditionally argue that the French Revolution inaugurated an attendant “revolution in military affairs,” this thesis presents evidence of evolutionary changes and continuities. Another important theme is the question of the combat effectiveness of French field armies during the Revolutionary epoch. Although historians typically present the French armies as unique and …
Date: August 2012
Creator: Hayworth, Jordan R.
System: The UNT Digital Library
"When We Go to Deal with City Hall, We Put on a Shirt and Tie": Gay Rights Movement Done the Dallas Way, 1965-2003 (open access)

"When We Go to Deal with City Hall, We Put on a Shirt and Tie": Gay Rights Movement Done the Dallas Way, 1965-2003

This dissertation examines the gay rights movement occurring in Dallas, Texas, from the mid-twentieth century to present day by focusing on the work of the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance (DGLA), previously known as the Dallas Gay Political Caucus and the Dallas Gay Alliance. Members of that group utilized a methodology they called "the Dallas Way" that minimized mass protests and rallies in favor of using backroom negotiations with the people who could make the changes sought by the movement. The fact that most of the members of the DGLA were white, professional men aided in the success of their methodology. Particularly useful in this type of effort is the use of legal action. The Dallas community supported several lawsuits that attempted to overthrow various versions of sodomy laws in the Texas Penal Code that criminalized an entire population of gay men and lesbians in the state.
Date: December 2018
Creator: Wisely, Karen S.
System: The UNT Digital Library

The First Lady of Washington City: Margaret Bayard Harrison Smith, Family, and Politics in the Early Republic

Margaret Bayard Harrison Smith was a prominent member of early Washington City society from the time she and her husband, Samuel Harrison Smith, moved to the blossoming capital in 1800 until her death in 1844. As a longtime resident of Washington, Margaret spent most of her adult life navigating the unique socio-political waters of the capital and developing friendships with many of the most prominent politicians of her time. Mrs. Smith's writings provide firsthand accounts of several important political events including Congress' role in the election of 1800, Jefferson's first inauguration, Madison's first inauguration, and the destruction left by the British after the siege of Washington. Her writings also provide a picture of early undeveloped Washington City, where grand public buildings were largely surrounded by wilderness and connected by muddy roads. While this work looks at the social and political environment that Margaret Smith experienced, it also examines many of the personal concerns that frequented Mrs. Smith's writings. Margaret's views on educating her children, interacting with servants, interacting with the enslaved population of Washington, and dealing with feelings of isolation, due to the distance from her family, are frequently addressed in her letters. Focusing on these aspects of Mrs. Smith's …
Date: May 2023
Creator: Thweatt, William Denton
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Martial Arts of Medieval Europe (open access)

The Martial Arts of Medieval Europe

During the late Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, fighting books—Fechtbücher—were produced in northern Italy, among the German states, in Burgundy, and on the Iberian peninsula. Long dismissed by fencing historians as “rough and untutored,” and largely unknown to military historians, these enigmatic treatises offer important insights into the cultural realities for all three orders in medieval society: those who fought, those who prayed, and those who labored. The intent of this dissertation is to demonstrate, contrary to the view of fencing historians, that the medieval works were systematic and logical approaches to personal defense rooted in optimizing available technology and regulating the appropriate use of the skills and technology through the lens of chivalric conduct. I argue further that these approaches were principle-based, that they built on Aristotelian conceptions of arte, and that by both contemporary and modern usage, they were martial arts. Finally, I argue that the existence of these martial arts lends important insights into the world-view across the spectrum of Medieval and early Renaissance society, but particularly with the tactical understanding held by professional combatants, the knights and men-at-arms. Three treatises are analyzed in detail. These include the anonymous RA I.33 Latin manuscript in the Royal …
Date: August 2011
Creator: Price, Brian R.
System: The UNT Digital Library