Author: Dick Steward
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826262287
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298
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Book Description
In early-nineteenth-century Missouri, the duel was a rite of passage for many young gentlemen seeking prestige and power. In time, however, social groups outside the ruling class engaged in a variety of violent acts and symbolic challenges under the rubric of the code duello. In Duels and the Roots of Violence in Missouri, Dick Steward takes an in-depth look at the evolution of dueling, tracing the origins, course, consequences, and ultimate demise of one of the most deadly art forms in Missouri history. By focusing on the history of dueling in Missouri, Steward details an important part of our culture and the long-reaching impact this form of violence has played in our society.
Author: Stuart W. Sanders
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 081319847X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298
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Book Description
When the popular musical Hamilton showcased the celebrated duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, it reminded twenty-first-century Americans that some honor-bound citizens once used negotiated, formal fights as a way to settle differences. During the Civil War, two prominent Kentuckians—one a Union colonel and the other a pro-Confederate civilian—continued this legacy by dueling. At a time when thousands of soldiers were slaughtering one another on battlefields, Colonel Leonidas Metcalfe and William T. Casto transformed the bank of the Ohio River into their own personal battleground. On May 8, 1862, these two men, both of whom were steeped in Southern honor culture, fought a formal duel with rifles at sixty yards. And, as in the fight between Hamilton and Burr, only one man walked away. Anatomy of a Duel: Secession, Civil War, and the Evolution of Kentucky Violence examines why white male Kentuckians engaged in the "honor culture" of duels and provides fascinating narratives that trace the lives of duelists. Stuart W. Sanders explores why, during a time when Americans were killing one another in open, brutal warfare, Casto and Metcalfe engaged in the process of negotiating and fighting a duel. In deconstructing the event, Sanders details why these distinguished Kentuckians found themselves on the dueling ground during the nation's bloodiest conflict, how society and the Civil War pushed them to fight, why duels continued to be fought in Kentucky even after this violent confrontation, and how Kentuckians applied violence after the Civil War. Anatomy of a Duel is a comprehensive and compelling look at how the secession crisis sparked the Casto-Metcalfe duel—a confrontation that impacted the evolution of violence in Kentucky.
Author: Randolph Roth
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674266862
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 672
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Book Description
In American Homicide, Randolph Roth charts changes in the character and incidence of homicide in the U.S. from colonial times to the present. Roth argues that the United States is distinctive in its level of violence among unrelated adults—friends, acquaintances, and strangers. America was extraordinarily homicidal in the mid-seventeenth century, but it became relatively non-homicidal by the mid-eighteenth century, even in the slave South; and by the early nineteenth century, rates in the North and the mountain South were extremely low. But the homicide rate rose substantially among unrelated adults in the slave South after the American Revolution; and it skyrocketed across the United States from the late 1840s through the mid-1870s, while rates in most other Western nations held steady or fell. That surge—and all subsequent increases in the homicide rate—correlated closely with four distinct phenomena: political instability; a loss of government legitimacy; a loss of fellow-feeling among members of society caused by racial, religious, or political antagonism; and a loss of faith in the social hierarchy. Those four factors, Roth argues, best explain why homicide rates have gone up and down in the United States and in other Western nations over the past four centuries, and why the United States is today the most homicidal affluent nation.
Author: James E. Starrs
Publisher: River Junction Press LLC
ISBN: 0964931540
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 415
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Book Description
Recently revealed truths and deconstructed myths are woven together in this fascinating account to form an unforgettable tale of political corruption, assassins, forged documents, and skeletal remains.
Author: Joseph M. Beilein Jr.
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820364541
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 283
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Book Description
Few men of the Civil War era were as complicated or infamous as William Clarke Quantrill. Most who know him recognize him as the architect of the Confederate raid on Lawrence, Kansas, in August 1863 that led to the murder of 180 mostly unarmed men and boys. Before that, though, Quantrill led a transient life, shifting from one masculine form to another. He played the role of fastidious schoolmaster, rough frontiersman, and even confidence man, developing certain notions and skills on his way to becoming a proslavery bushwhacker. Quantrill remains impossible to categorize, a man whose motivations have been difficult to pin down. Using new documents and old documents examined in new ways, A Man by Any Other Name paints the most authentic portrait of Quantrill yet rendered. The detailed study of this man not only explores a one-of-a-kind enigmatic figure but also allows us entry into many representative experiences of the Civil War generation. This picture brings to life a unique vision of antebellum life in the territories and a fresh view of guerrilla warfare on the border. Of even greater consequence, seeing Quantrill in this way allows us to examine the perceived essence of American manhood in the mid-nineteenth century.
Author: Ken Mueller
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501757555
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335
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Book Description
Senator Thomas Hart Benton was a towering figure in Missouri politics. Elected in 1821, he was their first senator and served in Washington, DC, for more than thirty years. Like Andrew Jackson, with whom he had a long and complicated relationship, Benton came out of the developing western section of the young American Republic. The foremost Democratic leader in the Senate, he claimed to represent the rights of "the common man" against "monied interests" of the East. "Benton and the people," the Missourian was fond of saying, "are one and the same"—a bit of bombast that reveals a good deal about this seasoned politician who was himself a mass of contradictions. He possessed an enormous ego and a touchy sense of personal honor that led to violent results on several occasions. Yet this conflation of "the people" and their tribune raises questions not addressed in earlier biographies of Benton. Mueller provides a fascinating portrait of Senator Benton. His political character, while viewed as flawed by contemporary standards, is balanced by his unconditional devotion to his particular vision. Mueller evaluates Benton's career in light of his attitudes toward slavery, Indian removal, and the Mexican borderlands, among other topics, and reveals Benton's importance to a new generation of readers. He offers a more authentic portrait of the man than has heretofore been presented by either his detractors or his admirers.
Author: Stephen Mennell
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745655386
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 427
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Book Description
Since 9/11, the American government has presumed to speak and act in the name of ‘civilization’. But isthat how the rest of the world sees it? And if not, why not? Stephen Mennell leads up to such contemporary questions through a careful study of the whole span of American development, from the first settlers to the American Empire. He takes a novel approach, analysing the USA’s experience in the light of Norbert Elias’s theory of civilizing (and decivilizing) processes. Drawing comparisons between the USA and other countries of the world, the topics discussed include: American manners and lifestyles Violence in American society The impact of markets on American social character American expansion, from the frontier to empire The ‘curse of the American Dream’ and increasing inequality The religiosity of American life Mennell shows how the long-term experience of Americans has been of growing more and more powerful in relation to their neighbours. This has had all-pervasive effects on the way they see themselves, their perception of the rest of the world, and how the rest of the world sees them. Mennell’s compelling and provocative account will appeal to anyone concerned about America's role in the world today, including students and scholars of American politics and society.
Author: Karen Jones
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317188497
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348
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Book Description
Firearms have been studied by imperial historians mainly as means of human destruction and material production. Yet firearms have always been invested with a whole array of additional social and symbolical meanings. By placing these meanings at the centre of analysis, the essays presented in this volume extend the study of the gun beyond the confines of military history and the examination of its impact on specific colonial encounters. By bringing cultural perspectives to bear on this most pervasive of technological artefacts, the contributors explore the densely interwoven relationships between firearms and broad processes of social change. In so doing, they contribute to a fuller understanding of some of the most significant consequences of British and American imperial expansions. Not the least original feature of the book is its global frame of reference. Bringing together historians of different periods and regions, A Cultural History of Firearms in the Age of Empire overcomes traditional compartmentalisations of historical knowledge and encourages the drawing of novel and illuminating comparisons across time and space.
Author: Lee Sandlin
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307473570
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370
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Book Description
A riveting narrative look at one of the most colorful, dangerous, and peculiar places in America's historical landscape: the strange, wonderful, and mysterious Mississippi River of the 19th century. Beginning in the early 1800s and climaxing with the siege of Vicksburg in 1863, Wicked River brings to life a place where river pirates brushed elbows with future presidents and religious visionaries shared passage with thieves. Here is a minute-by-minute account of Natchez being flattened by a tornado; the St. Louis harbor being crushed by a massive ice floe; hidden, nefarious celebrations of Mardi Gras; and the sinking of the Sultana, the worst naval disaster in American history. Here, too, is the Mississippi itself: gorgeous, perilous, and unpredictable. Masterfully told, Wicked River is an exuberant work of Americana that portrays a forgotten society on the edge of revolutionary change.
Author: Robert E. Wright
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313012709
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244
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Book Description
Modern financial theories enable us to look at old problems in early American Republic historiography from new perspectives. Concepts such as information asymmetry, portfolio choice, and principal-agent dilemmas open up new scholarly vistas. Transcending the ongoing debates over the prevalence of either community or capitalism in early America, Wright offers fresh and compelling arguments that illuminate motivations for individual and collective actions, and brings agency back into the historical equation. Wright argues that the Colonial rebellion was in part sparked by destabilizing British monetary policy that threatened many with financial insolvency; that in areas without modern financial institutions and practices, dueling was a rational means of protecting one's creditworthiness; that the principle-agent problem led to the institutionalization of the U.S. Constitution's system of checks and balances; and that a lack of information and education induced women to shift from active business owners to passive investors. Economists, historians, and political scientists alike will be interested in this strikingly novel and compelling recasting of our nation's formative decades.
