The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War

The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War PDF Author: Carl M. Cannon
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 146161421X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
The Founders wrote in 1776 that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are unalienable American rights. In The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War, Carl M. Cannon shows how this single phrase is one of almost unbelievable historical power. It was this rich rhetorical vein that New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and President George W. Bush tapped into after 9/11 when they urged Americans to go to ballgames, to shop, to do things that made them happy even in the face of unrivaled horror. From the Revolutionary War to the current War on Terrorism, Americans have lived out this creed. They have been helped in this effort by their elected leaders, who in times of war inevitably hark back to Jefferson's soaring language. If the former Gotham mayor and the current president had perfect pitch in the days after September 11, so too have American presidents and other leaders throughout our nation's history. In this book, Mr. Cannon—a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist—traces the roots of Jefferson's powerful phrase and explores how it has been embraced by wartime presidents for two centuries. Mr. Cannon draws on original research at presidential libraries and interviews with Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, among others. He discussed with the presidents exactly what the phrase means to them. Mr. Cannon charts how Americans' understanding of the pursuit of happiness has changed through the years as the nation itself has changed. In the end, America's political leaders have all come to the same conclusion as its spiritual leaders: True happiness—either for a nation or an individual—does not come from conquest or fortune or even from the attainment of freedom itself. It comes in the pursuit of happiness for the benefit of others. This may be one truth that contemporary liberals and conservatives can agree on. John McCain and Jimmy Carter both envision happiness as a sacrifice to a higher calling, embodied in everything from McCain's time as a prisoner of war to the N

The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War

The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War PDF Author: Carl M. Cannon
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 146161421X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 342

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Founders wrote in 1776 that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are unalienable American rights. In The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War, Carl M. Cannon shows how this single phrase is one of almost unbelievable historical power. It was this rich rhetorical vein that New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and President George W. Bush tapped into after 9/11 when they urged Americans to go to ballgames, to shop, to do things that made them happy even in the face of unrivaled horror. From the Revolutionary War to the current War on Terrorism, Americans have lived out this creed. They have been helped in this effort by their elected leaders, who in times of war inevitably hark back to Jefferson's soaring language. If the former Gotham mayor and the current president had perfect pitch in the days after September 11, so too have American presidents and other leaders throughout our nation's history. In this book, Mr. Cannon—a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist—traces the roots of Jefferson's powerful phrase and explores how it has been embraced by wartime presidents for two centuries. Mr. Cannon draws on original research at presidential libraries and interviews with Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, among others. He discussed with the presidents exactly what the phrase means to them. Mr. Cannon charts how Americans' understanding of the pursuit of happiness has changed through the years as the nation itself has changed. In the end, America's political leaders have all come to the same conclusion as its spiritual leaders: True happiness—either for a nation or an individual—does not come from conquest or fortune or even from the attainment of freedom itself. It comes in the pursuit of happiness for the benefit of others. This may be one truth that contemporary liberals and conservatives can agree on. John McCain and Jimmy Carter both envision happiness as a sacrifice to a higher calling, embodied in everything from McCain's time as a prisoner of war to the N

On War

On War PDF Author: Carl von Clausewitz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military art and science
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description


Looking for the Good War

Looking for the Good War PDF Author: Elizabeth D. Samet
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374716129
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
“A remarkable book, from its title and subtitle to its last words . . . A stirring indictment of American sentimentality about war.” —Robert G. Kaiser, The Washington Post In Looking for the Good War, Elizabeth D. Samet reexamines the literature, art, and culture that emerged after World War II, bringing her expertise as a professor of English at West Point to bear on the complexity of the postwar period in national life. She exposes the confusion about American identity that was expressed during and immediately after the war, and the deep national ambivalence toward war, violence, and veterans—all of which were suppressed in subsequent decades by a dangerously sentimental attitude toward the United States’ “exceptional” history and destiny. Samet finds the war's ambivalent legacy in some of its most heavily mythologized figures: the war correspondent epitomized by Ernie Pyle, the character of the erstwhile G.I. turned either cop or criminal in the pulp fiction and feature films of the late 1940s, the disaffected Civil War veteran who looms so large on the screen in the Cold War Western, and the resurgent military hero of the post-Vietnam period. Taken together, these figures reveal key elements of postwar attitudes toward violence, liberty, and nation—attitudes that have shaped domestic and foreign policy and that respond in various ways to various assumptions about national identity and purpose established or affirmed by World War II. As the United States reassesses its roles in Afghanistan and the Middle East, the time has come to rethink our national mythology: the way that World War II shaped our sense of national destiny, our beliefs about the use of American military force throughout the world, and our inability to accept the realities of the twenty-first century’s decades of devastating conflict.

Warrior Pursuits

Warrior Pursuits PDF Author: Brian Sandberg
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801899699
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
How did warrior nobles’ practices of violence shape provincial society and the royal state in early seventeenth-century France? Warrior nobles frequently armed themselves for civil war in southern France during the troubled early seventeenth century. These bellicose nobles’ practices of violence shaped provincial society and the royal state in early modern France. The southern French provinces of Guyenne and Languedoc suffered almost continual religious strife and civil conflict between 1598 and 1635, providing an excellent case for investigating the dynamics of early modern civil violence. Warrior Pursuits constructs a cultural history of civil conflict, analyzing in detail how provincial nobles engaged in revolt and civil warfare during this period. Brian Sandberg’s extensive archival research on noble families in these provinces reveals that violence continued to be a way of life for many French nobles, challenging previous scholarship that depicts a progressive “civilizing” of noble culture. Sandberg argues that southern French nobles engaged in warrior pursuits—social and cultural practices of violence designed to raise personal military forces and to wage civil warfare in order to advance various political and religious goals. Close relationships between the profession of arms, the bonds of nobility, and the culture of revolt allowed nobles to regard their violent performances as “heroic gestures” and “beautiful warrior acts.” Warrior nobles represented the key organizers of civil warfare in the early seventeenth century, orchestrating all aspects of the conduct of civil warfare—from recruitment to combat—according to their own understandings of their warrior pursuits. Building on the work of Arlette Jouanna and other historians of the nobility, Sandberg provides new perspectives on noble culture, state development, and civil warfare in early modern France. French historians and scholars of the Reformation and the European Wars of Religion will find Warrior Pursuits engaging and insightful.

Hiding in Plain Sight

Hiding in Plain Sight PDF Author: Eric Stover
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520962761
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
Hiding in Plain Sight tells the story of the global effort to apprehend the world’s most wanted fugitives. Beginning with the flight of tens of thousands of Nazi war criminals and their collaborators after World War II, then moving on to the question of justice following the recent Balkan wars and the Rwandan genocide, and ending with the establishment of the International Criminal Court and America’s pursuit of suspected terrorists in the aftermath of 9/11, the book explores the range of diplomatic and military strategies—both successful and unsuccessful—that states and international courts have adopted to pursue and capture war crimes suspects. It is a story fraught with broken promises, backroom politics, ethical dilemmas, and daring escapades—all in the name of international justice and human rights. Hiding in Plain Sight is a companion book to the public television documentary Dead Reckoning: Postwar Justice from World War II to The War on Terror. For more information about the documentary, visit www.pbs.org/wnet/dead-reckoning/. And for more information about the Human Rights Center, visit hrc.berkeley.edu.

Breakout and Pursuit

Breakout and Pursuit PDF Author: Martin Blumenson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : World War, 1939-1945
Languages : en
Pages : 802

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Book Description


In War We Trust

In War We Trust PDF Author: Chris J. Dolan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351155741
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
There is a long-standing tradition in Western culture of differentiating between 'just' and 'unjust' wars. 11 September 2001 has stimulated a debate in the West which holds that although people who are opposed to war in principle may disagree that any such distinction can possibly be made, the basic ideas involved seem to present a plausible argument that there are times when war is, at the very least, just and politically necessary. These and other issues are addressed in this study. The consistent theme throughout this book is that significant ethical issues and moral dilemmas have been raised as they pertain to the forceful expression of American power via the Bush Doctrine's assertion of the right to engage in first strikes against states and non-states in the wake of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. This book is intended for those with an interest in political science, history, leadership studies and foreign policy analysis.

The Art of Political War

The Art of Political War PDF Author: David Horowitz
Publisher: Spence Publishing Company
ISBN: 9781890626280
Category : Conservatism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Politics is war, but in America, one side is doing all the shooting -- the liberals. Shell-shocked conservatives blame their failures on the media or unscrupulous opponents, but they refuse to name the real culprit: themselves. In a book that shattered the complacency of establishment conservatives -- and helped put George W. Bush in the White House -- David Horowitz lays out the strategy to fight back. -- What are the six principles of politics that liberals understand but conservatives don't? -- How can conservatives win the "sound bite war"? -- What are the five agendas that can make the Republicans the majority party?

In Pursuit of Military Excellence

In Pursuit of Military Excellence PDF Author: Shimon Naveh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113630925X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
This book offers a scientific interpretation of the field of military knowledge situated between strategy and tactics, better known as operational art', and traces the evolution of operational awareness and its culmination in a full-fledged theory. The author, a Brigadier General (ret.) in the Israeli Defence Forces and Doctor of History, King's College, London, clarifies the substance of operational art' and constructs a cognitive framework for its critical analysis. He chronicles the stages in the evolution of operational theory from the emergence of 19th-century military thought to Blitzkrieg. For the first time the Soviet theories of Deep Operations' and Strike Manoeuvre' that emerged in the 1920s and 1930 are discussed. The author argues that it is these doctrines that eventually led to the crystallization of the American Airland Battle theory, successfully implemented in the Gulf War.

The Pursuit of Power

The Pursuit of Power PDF Author: Richard J. Evans
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241295777
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 848

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Book Description
ECONOMIST BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2016 'A scintillating, encyclopaedic history, rich in detail from the arcane to the familiar... a veritable tour de force' Richard Overy, New Statesman 'Transnational history at its finest ... .. social, political and cultural themes swirl together in one great canvas of immense detail and beauty' Gerard DeGroot, The Times 'Dazzlingly erudite and entertaining' Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times A masterpiece which brings to life an extraordinarly turbulent and dramatic era of revolutionary change. The Pursuit of Power draws on a lifetime of thinking about nineteenth-century Europe to create an extraordinarily rich, surprising and entertaining panorama of a continent undergoing drastic transformation. The book aims to reignite the sense of wonder that permeated this remarkable era, as rulers and ruled navigated overwhelming cultural, political and technological changes. It was a time where what was seen as modern with amazing speed appeared old-fashioned, where huge cities sprang up in a generation, new European countries were created and where, for the first time, humans could communicate almost instantly over thousands of miles. In the period bounded by the Battle of Waterloo and the outbreak of World War I, Europe dominated the rest of the world as never before or since: this book breaks new ground by showing how the continent shaped, and was shaped by, its interactions with other parts of the globe. Richard Evans explores fully the revolutions, empire-building and wars that marked the nineteenth century, but the book is about so much more, whether it is illness, serfdom, religion or philosophy. The Pursuit of Power is a work by a historian at the height of his powers: essential for anyone trying to understand Europe, then or now.