Author: Mark Meigs
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349139343
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277
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Book Description
An analytical account of the experiences of American soldiers in World War 1 drawing on a wide range of sources in France and the United States. Since American forces did not appear on the Western Front in substantial numbers until the summer of 1918, their experiences of the war were short and less devastating than those of their Allied comrades. Thus surviving American troops emerged from the experience in a rather more upbeat mood about the war than the Allies. This is a fascinating and ground-breaking work as few other military historians have attempted to deal with the US army of 1918 in depth.
Author: Michael Hviid Jacobsen
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1839988754
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 184
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Book Description
This edited volume will illustrate the continuing interest in Bauman’s work through a number of chapters each dealing with the important aspects of his work and shedding light on some new angles and perspectives on his life and work. It seeks to position Bauman within the field of sociology and to provide some examples of his lasting contribution to and relevance for the discipline. Bauman’s ideas remain an important source of inspiration for many scholars and researchers working within a variety of different fields and sub-fields, appealing equally to empirical work and theoretical elaboration. This book contains ten chapters, and all chapters are devoted to the presentation and discussion of themes and ideas that were characteristic of Bauman’s way of doing and writing. The purpose of this volume – as with the other volumes published in the Anthem Press ‘Companion to Sociology’ series – is to provide a comprehensive overview of Zygmunt Bauman’s continued importance within the field of sociology and related social science disciplines.
Author: Gary Laderman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199881243
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
Though it has often been passionately criticized--as fraudulent, exploitative, even pagan--the American funeral home has become nearly as inevitable as death itself, an institution firmly embedded in our culture. But how did the funeral home come to hold such a position? What is its history? And is it guilty of the charges sometimes leveled against it? In Rest in Peace, Gary Laderman traces the origins of American funeral rituals, from the evolution of embalming techniques during and after the Civil War and the shift from home funerals to funeral homes at the turn of the century, to the increasing subordination of priests, ministers, and other religious figures to the funeral director throughout the twentieth century. In doing so he shows that far from manipulating vulnerable mourners, as Jessica Mitford claimed in her best-selling The American Way of Death (1963), funeral directors are highly respected figures whose services reflect the community's deepest needs and wishes. Indeed, Laderman shows that funeral directors generally give the people what they want when it is time to bury our dead. He reveals, for example, that the open casket, often criticized as barbaric, provides a deeply meaningful moment for friends and family who must say goodbye to their loved one. But he also shows how the dead often come back to life in the popular imagination to disturb the peace of the living. Drawing upon interviews with funeral directors, major historical events like the funerals of John F. Kennedy and Rudolf Valentino, films, television, newspaper reports, proposals for funeral reform, and other primary sources, Rest in Peace cuts through the rhetoric to show us the reality--and the real cultural value--of the American funeral.
Author: David Stevenson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674267591
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 444
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Book Description
With so much at stake and so much already lost, why did World War I end with a whimper-an arrangement between two weary opponents to suspend hostilities? After more than four years of desperate fighting, with victories sometimes measured in feet and inches, why did the Allies reject the option of advancing into Germany in 1918 and taking Berlin? Most histories of the Great War focus on the avoidability of its beginning. This book brings a laser-like focus to its ominous end-the Allies' incomplete victory, and the tragic ramifications for world peace just two decades later. In the most comprehensive account to date of the conflict's endgame, David Stevenson approaches the events of 1918 from a truly international perspective, examining the positions and perspectives of combatants on both sides, as well as the impact of the Russian Revolution. Stevenson pays close attention to America's effort in its first twentieth-century war, including its naval and military contribution, army recruitment, industrial mobilization, and home-front politics. Alongside military and political developments, he adds new information about the crucial role of economics and logistics. The Allies' eventual success, Stevenson shows, was due to new organizational methods of managing men and materiel and to increased combat effectiveness resulting partly from technological innovation. These factors, combined with Germany's disastrous military offensive in spring 1918, ensured an Allied victory-but not a conclusive German defeat.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military art and science
Languages : en
Pages : 634
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Book Description
Author: Chad L. Williams
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807899356
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 469
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Book Description
For the 380,000 African American soldiers who fought in World War I, Woodrow Wilson's charge to make the world "safe for democracy" carried life-or-death meaning. Chad L. Williams reveals the central role of African American soldiers in the global conflict and how they, along with race activists and ordinary citizens, committed to fighting for democracy at home and beyond. Using a diverse range of sources, Torchbearers of Democracy reclaims the legacy of African American soldiers and veterans and connects their history to issues such as the obligations of citizenship, combat and labor, diaspora and internationalism, homecoming and racial violence, "New Negro" militancy, and African American memories of the war.
Author: Carol R Byerly
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814789633
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
The influenza epidemic of 1918 killed more people in one year than the Great War killed in four, sickening at least one quarter of the world's population. In Fever of War, Carol R. Byerly uncovers the startling impact of the 1918 influenza epidemic on the American army, its medical officers, and their profession, a story which has long been silenced. Through medical officers' memoirs and diaries, official reports, scientific articles, and other original sources, Byerly tells a grave tale about the limits of modern medicine and warfare. The tragedy begins with overly confident medical officers who, armed with new knowledge and technologies of modern medicine, had an inflated sense of their ability to control disease. The conditions of trench warfare on the Western Front soon outflanked medical knowledge by creating an environment where the influenza virus could mutate to a lethal strain. This new flu virus soon left medical officers’ confidence in tatters as thousands of soldiers and trainees died under their care. They also were unable to convince the War Department to reduce the crowding of troops aboard ships and in barracks which were providing ideal environments for the epidemic to thrive. After the war, and given their helplessness to control influenza, many medical officers and military leaders began to downplay the epidemic as a significant event for the U. S. army, in effect erasing this dramatic story from the American historical memory.
Author: John F. Walvoord
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
ISBN: 9781414322360
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
Updating the work of renowned biblical scholar John F. Walvoord, who famously predicted current world events, Armageddon, Oil, and Terror offers shocking predictions on the future of terrorism, oil-based economics, and nuclear war in the Middle East. In all, Armageddon, Oil, and Terror sheds light on 12 events related to end-time prophecies that seem eerily close to coming true. Includes materials from lectures and discussions after 9/11 and incorporates vital, updated material from other Walvoord classics. It is as current as today's news . . . and every prediction rings true.
Author: Lisa M. Budreau
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 081472518X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
World War I marked the first war in which the United States government and military took full responsibility for the identification, burial, and memorialization of those killed in battle, and as a result, the process of burying and remembering the dead became intensely political. The government and military attempted to create a patriotic consensus on the historical memory of World War I in which war dead were not only honored but used as a symbol to legitimize America's participation in a war not fully supported by all citizens. In this book, the author unpacks the politics and processes of the competing interest groups involved in the three core components of commemoration: repatriation, remembrance, and return. This book emphasizes the inherent tensions in the politics of memorialization and explores how those interests often conflicted with the needs of veterans and relatives.
Author: Craig Gibson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107782635
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481
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Book Description
Until now scholars have looked for the source of the indomitable Tommy morale on the Western Front in innate British bloody-mindedness and irony, not to mention material concerns such as leave, food, rum, brothels, regimental pride, and male bonding. However, re-examining previously used sources alongside never-before consulted archives, Craig Gibson shifts the focus away from battle and the trenches to times behind the front, where the British intermingled with a vast population of allied civilians, whom Lord Kitchener had instructed the troops to 'avoid'. Besides providing a comprehensive examination of soldiers' encounters with local French and Belgian inhabitants which were not only unavoidable but also challenging, symbiotic and uplifting in equal measure, Gibson contends that such relationships were crucial to how the war was fought on the Western Front and, ultimately, to British victory in 1918. What emerges is a novel interpretation of the British and Dominion soldier at war.
