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“A Gentleman and an Officer”: A Military and Social History of James B. Griffin's Civil War

James B. Griffin

Judith N. McArthur and Orville Vernon Burton (eds)

In 1861, James B. Griffin left Edgefield, South Carolina, and rode off to Virginia to take up duty with the Confederate Army. He was thirty-five years old, a wealthy planter, and the owner of ... More

In 1861, James B. Griffin left Edgefield, South Carolina, and rode off to Virginia to take up duty with the Confederate Army. He was thirty-five years old, a wealthy planter, and the owner of sixty-one slaves when he joined Wade Hampton's elite Legion as a major of cavalry. This book features eighty of Griffin's letters written at the Virginia front, and during later postings on the South Carolina coast, to his wife Leila Burt Griffin. The letters encompass Griffin's entire Civil War service, detailing living conditions and military maneuvers, the jockeying for position among officers, and the different ways in which officers and enlisted men interacted. The letters shed light on the life of a middle officer—a life of extreme military hardship, complicated further by the need for reassurance about personal valor and status common to men of the southern gentry. Griffin describes secret troop movements, such as the Hampton Legion's role in the Peninsula Campaign. Here he relates the march from Manassas to Fredricksburg, the siege of Yorktown and the retreat to Richmond, and the fighting at Eltham's landing and Seven Pines, where Griffin commanded the Legion after Hampton was wounded. Griffin recounts day-to-day issues, from the weather to gossip. Monumental historical events sent Griffin off to war but his heartfelt considerations were about his family, his community, and his own personal pride. Griffin's letters present the Civil War as the ordeal by fire that tested and verified—or modified—Southern upperclass values.Less

‘A Nation of Beggars’?: Priests, People, and Politics in Famine Ireland, 1846–1852

Donal A. Kerr

This is the first full account of the role of the Irish Catholic Church in the Great Famine of 1846 and its aftermath. The author shows how the Famine and the subsequent evictions led to rural ... More

This is the first full account of the role of the Irish Catholic Church in the Great Famine of 1846 and its aftermath. The author shows how the Famine and the subsequent evictions led to rural violence and a spate of assassinations culminating in the murder of Major Mahon, which the local parish priest was accused of inciting. Savage denunciations followed in press and parliament. In conjunction with the belief that Pope Pius IX had blessed the struggle of oppressed nationalities, many priests became involved in the run-up to the Young Ireland Rebellion. These years also saw a sharpening of religious tension as Protestant Evangelicals made an all-out effort to Protestantine Ireland. The author has charted how the Famine and the violence soured relations between the Church and State and ultimately destroyed Lord John Russell’s dream of bringing a golden age to Ireland.Less

The Abbots and Priors of Late Medieval and Reformation England

Martin Heale

The importance of the medieval abbot needs no particular emphasis. The monastic superiors of late medieval England ruled over thousands of monks and canons, who swore to them vows of obedience; they ... More

The importance of the medieval abbot needs no particular emphasis. The monastic superiors of late medieval England ruled over thousands of monks and canons, who swore to them vows of obedience; they were prominent figures in royal and church government; and collectively they controlled properties worth around double the Crown’s annual ordinary income. As guardians of regular observance and the primary interface between their monastery and the wider world, abbots and priors were pivotal to the effective functioning and well-being of the monastic order. This book provides the first detailed study of English monastic superiors, exploring their evolving role and reputation between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. Individual chapters examine the election of late medieval monastic heads; the internal functions of the superior as the father of the community; the head of house as administrator; abbatial living standards and modes of display; monastic superiors’ public role in service of the Church and Crown; their external relations and reputation; the interaction between monastic heads and the government in Henry VIII’s England; the Dissolution of the monasteries; and the afterlives of abbots and priors following the suppression of their houses. This study of monastic leadership sheds much valuable light on the religious houses of late medieval England, including their spiritual life, administration, spending priorities, and their multi-faceted relations with the outside world. It also elucidates the crucial part played by monastic superiors in the dramatic events of the 1530s, when many heads surrendered their monasteries into the hands of Henry VIII.Less

Abortion Under Apartheid: Nationalism, Sexuality, and Women's Reproductive Rights in South Africa

Susanne M. Klausen

This is the first book to focus on the history of abortion in an African context. It traces the criminalization of abortion in South Africa during the apartheid era (1948–1990), the emergence of a ... More

This is the first book to focus on the history of abortion in an African context. It traces the criminalization of abortion in South Africa during the apartheid era (1948–1990), the emergence of a flourishing clandestine abortion industry, and the controversial passage in 1975 of the country’s first statutory law on abortion. The study examines the politics of gender, sexuality, racism, and nationalism in the making and maintenance of apartheid culture, in particular regarding the authoritarian National Party government’s attempt to regulate white women’s reproductive sexuality in the interests of maintaining white supremacy. A major focus of the book is the battle about abortion that erupted in the late 1960s when doctors and feminists called for liberalization of colonial-era abortion laws. A central argument is that all women, regardless of race, were oppressed under apartheid. Although the National Party was preoccupied with denying young white women their reproductive rights, black women bore the brunt of the lack of access to safe abortion, suffering the effects of clandestine abortion on a shocking scale in urban centers around the country. At the heart of the story are the black and white girls and women who, regardless of hostility from a range of official and traditional authorities, persisted in determining their own destinies. Although a great many were harmed and even died as a result of being denied safe abortion, many more succeeded in thwarting opponents of women’s right to control their capacity to bear children. This book hopes to convey both the tragic and triumphant sides of their story.Less

The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society, and Culture in Britain

Bernard Porter

The British empire was a huge enterprise. To foreigners, it more or less defined Britain in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its repercussions in the wider world are still with us today. It also ... More

The British empire was a huge enterprise. To foreigners, it more or less defined Britain in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its repercussions in the wider world are still with us today. It also had a great impact on Britain herself: for example, on her economy, security, population, and eating habits. One might expect this to have been reflected in her society and culture. Indeed, this has now become the conventional wisdom: that Britain was steeped in imperialism domestically, which affected (or infected) almost everything Britons thought, felt, and did. This book examines this assumption critically against the broader background of contemporary British society. It argues that the empire had a far lower profile in Britain than it did abroad. Although Britain was an imperial nation in this period, she was never a genuine imperial society. As well as showing how this was possible, the book also discusses the implications of this attitude for Britain and her empire, and for the relationship between culture and imperialism more generally, bringing his study up to date by including the case of the present-day United States.Less

Absolute War: Violence and Mass Warfare in the German Lands, 1792-1820

Mark Hewitson

Wars have played a fundamental part in modern German history. Although infrequent, conflicts involving German states have usually been extensive and often catastrophic, constituting turning points ... More

Wars have played a fundamental part in modern German history. Although infrequent, conflicts involving German states have usually been extensive and often catastrophic, constituting turning points for Europe as a whole. This volume is the first in a series of studies that explore how such conflicts were experienced by soldiers and civilians during wartime, and how they were subsequently imagined and understood during peacetime. Without such an understanding, it is difficult to make sense of the dramatic shifts characterizing the politics of Germany and Europe over the past two centuries. The studies argue that the ease—or reluctance—with which Germans went to war, and the far-reaching consequences of such wars on domestic politics, were related to soldiers’ and civilians’ attitudes to violence and death, as well as to long-term transformations in contemporaries’ conceptualization of conflict. Absolute War reassesses the meaning of military conflict for the millions of German subjects who were directly implicated in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Based on a re-reading of contemporary diaries, letters, memoirs, official correspondence, press reports, pamphlets, treatises, poems, and plays, it refocuses attention on combat and conscription as the central components of new forms of mass warfare. It concentrates, in particular, on the impact of violence, killing, and death on soldiers’ and civilians’ experiences and subsequent memories of conflict. War has often been conceived of as ‘an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds’, as Clausewitz put it, but the relationship between military conflicts and violent acts remains a problematic one.Less

Absolutism in Renaissance Milan: Plenitude of Power under the Visconti and the Sforza 1329-1535

Jane Black

This volume charts the rise and decline of absolutism in Milan from the early fourteenth to the early sixteenth century. The study shows how authority above the law, once the preserve of pope and ... More

This volume charts the rise and decline of absolutism in Milan from the early fourteenth to the early sixteenth century. The study shows how authority above the law, once the preserve of pope and emperor, was claimed by the ruling Milanese dynasties, the Visconti and the Sforza, and why this privilege was finally abandoned by Francesco II Sforza (d. 1535), the last duke. As new rulers, the Visconti and the Sforza had had to impose their regime by rewarding supporters at the expense of opponents. That process required absolute power (also known as plenitude of power), meaning the capacity to laws and the rights of subjects, including titles to property. The basis for such power reflected the changing status of Milanese rulers, first as signori and then as dukes. Contemporary lawyers were at first prepared to overturn established doctrines in support of the free use of absolute power: even Baldo degli Ubaldi accepted the latest teaching. But eventually lawyers regretted the new approach, reasserting the traditional principle that laws could not be set aside without compelling justification. The Visconti and the Sforza also saw the dangers of absolute power: as legitimate princes they were meant to champion law and justice, not condone arbitrary acts that disregarded basic rights. Black traces the application of plenitude of power in day‐to‐day government, and demonstrates how the rulers of Milan kept pace with the initial acceptance and subsequent rejection by lawyers of the concept of absolute power.Less

Accounting for Oneself: Worth, Status, and the Social Order in Early Modern England

Alexandra Shepard

This book brings together an unprecedented volume of material to offer a fundamentally new account of the social order in early modern England. The book pieces together the language of ... More

This book brings together an unprecedented volume of material to offer a fundamentally new account of the social order in early modern England. The book pieces together the language of self-description deployed by over 13,500 witnesses in English courts in response to questions designed to assess their creditworthiness. Spanning the period between 1550 and 1728, it is the first study of English society that fully incorporates women; that offers comprehensive coverage of the range of social groups from the gentry to the labouring poor and across the life cycle; and that represents regional variation. The book sheds new light on the conceptualization of wealth and poverty by ordinary people in the early modern past; on the operation of credit in the early modern economy; on gendered divisions of labour and people’s working lives; and on the profound consequences of widening social inequality that redrew social relations and the calculus of esteem in England between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.Less

Active Bodies: A History of Women’s Physical Education in Twentieth-Century America

Martha H. Verbrugge

This book examines the philosophies, experiences, and instructional programs of white and black female physical educators who taught in public schools and diverse colleges and universities, including ... More

This book examines the philosophies, experiences, and instructional programs of white and black female physical educators who taught in public schools and diverse colleges and universities, including coed and single-sex, public and private, and predominantly white or black institutions. Working primarily with female students, women physical educators had to consider what an active female could and should do compared to an active male. Applying concepts of sex differences, they debated the implications of female anatomy, physiology, reproductive functions, and psychosocial traits for achieving gender parity in the gym. Teachers’ interpretations were contingent on where they worked and whom they taught. They also responded to broad historical conditions, including developments in American feminism, law, and education, society’s changing attitudes about gender, race, and sexuality, and scientific controversies over sex differences and the relative weight of nature versus nurture. While deliberating fairness for female students, white and black women physical educators also pursued equity for themselves, as their workplaces and nascent profession often marginalized female and minority personnel. Questions of difference and equity divided the field throughout the twentieth century; while some women teachers favored moderate views and incremental change, others promoted justice for their students and themselves by exerting authority at their schools, critiquing traditional concepts of “difference,” and devising innovative curricula. Drawing on extensive archival research, this book sheds new light on physical education’s application of scientific ideas, the politics of gender, race, and sexuality in the domain of active bodies, and the enduring complexities of difference and equity in American culture.Less

Admiration and Awe: Morisco Buildings and Identity Negotiations in Early Modern Spanish Historiography

Antonio Urquízar-Herrera

This book offers the first systematic analysis of the cultural and religious appropriation of Andalusian architecture by Spanish historians during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Early ... More

This book offers the first systematic analysis of the cultural and religious appropriation of Andalusian architecture by Spanish historians during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Early Modern Spain was left with a significant Islamic heritage: Córdoba Mosque had been turned into a cathedral, in Seville the Aljama Mosque’s minaret was transformed into a Christian bell tower, and Granada Alhambra had become a Renaissance palace. To date this process of Christian appropriation has frequently been discussed as a phenomenon of hybridisation. However, during that period the construction of a Spanish national identity became a key focus of historical discourse. The aforementioned cultural hybridity encountered partial opposition from those seeking to establish cultural and religious homogeneity. The Iberian Peninsula’s Islamic past became a major concern and historical writing served as the site for a complex negotiation of identity. Historians and antiquarians used a range of strategies to re-appropriate the meaning of medieval Islamic heritage as befitted the new identity of Spain as a Catholic monarchy and empire. On one hand, the monuments’ Islamic origin was subjected to historical revisions and re-identified as Roman or Phoenician. On the other hand, religious forgeries were invented that staked claims for buildings and cities having been founded by Christians prior to the arrival of the Muslims in Spain. Islamic stones were used as core evidence in debates shaping the early development of archaeology, and they also became the centre of a historical controversy about the origin of Spain as a nation and its ecclesiastical history.Less

The Aesthetics of Loss: German Women's Art of the First World War

Claudia Siebrecht

The Aesthetics of Loss is a cultural history of German women’s art of the First World War that locates their rich visual testimony in the context of the civilian experience of war and ... More

The Aesthetics of Loss is a cultural history of German women’s art of the First World War that locates their rich visual testimony in the context of the civilian experience of war and wartime loss. Drawing on a fascinating body of visual sources produced throughout the war years, the book examines the thematic evolution of women’s art from expressions of support for the war effort to more nuanced and ambivalent testimonies of loss and grief. Many of the images are stark woodcuts, linocuts, and lithographs of great iconographical power that acted as narrative tools to deal with the novel, unsettling, and often traumatic experience of war. German female artists developed a unique aesthetic response to the conflict that both expressed emotional distress and allowed them to re-imagine the place of mourning women in wartime society. Historical codes of wartime behaviour and traditional rites of public mourning led female artists to redefine cultural practices of bereavement, question existing notions of heroic death and proud bereavement through art, and place grief at the centre of women’s war experiences. As a cultural, aesthetic, and thematic point of reference, German women’s art of the First World War has had a fundamental influence on the European memory and understanding of modern war.Less

Afghan History Through Afghan Eyes

Nile Green (ed.)

Recent international intervention in Afghanistan has reproduced familiar versions of the Afghan national story, from repeatedly doomed invasions to perpetual fault lines of ethnic division. Yet ... More

Recent international intervention in Afghanistan has reproduced familiar versions of the Afghan national story, from repeatedly doomed invasions to perpetual fault lines of ethnic division. Yet almost no attention has been paid to the ways in which Afghans have made sense of their history themselves. Radically questioning received ideas about how to understand Afghanistan, Afghan History Through Afghan Eyes asks how Afghan intellectuals, ideologues and ordinary people have understood their collective past. The book brings together the leading international specialists to focus on case studies of the Dari, Pashto and Uzbek histories which Afghans have produced in abundance since the formation of the Afghan state in the mid-eighteenth century. As crucial sources on Afghans’ own conceptions of state, society and culture, their writings help us understand the dominant and marginal, conflicting and changing, ways in which Afghans have understood the emergence of their own society and its relationships with the wider world. Based on new research in Afghan languages, Afghan History Through Afghan Eyes opens up entirely new perspectives on Afghan political, social and cultural life, providing penetrating insights into the master narratives behind domestic and international conflict in Afghanistan.Less

An African Volk: The Apartheid Regime and Its Search for Survival

Jamie Miller

Opposition to apartheid was one of the great moments in postwar history. Its success remains a symbol of a progressive global community. An African Volk looks at this phenomenon from the other side. ... More

Opposition to apartheid was one of the great moments in postwar history. Its success remains a symbol of a progressive global community. An African Volk looks at this phenomenon from the other side. It explores how the apartheid state in South Africa sought to maintain power as the world of white empire gave way to a new postcolonial environment that repudiated racial hierarchy. Drawing upon archival research across Southern Africa and beyond, as well as over fifty hours of interviews with leading figures from the apartheid order, An African Volk shows how instead of simply resisting decolonization and African nationalism in the name of white supremacy, the white power structure looked to hijack and invert the norms of the new global era to relegitimize its rule, break out of isolation, and secure international acceptance. Situated at the nexus of African, decolonization, and Cold War history, An African Volk tells the story of how the architects of apartheid used statecraft to redefine whiteness and promote a fresh ideological basis for their rule. In doing so, it offers new global and local perspectives on the apartheid state and illuminates the complexities and contradictions of the postcolonial project. Equally, it shows how the regime’s outreach to Africa both reflected and fueled heated debates within Afrikaner society over the relationship between race, nation, and state, exposing a deeply divided polity in the midst of massive economic, cultural, and social change.Less

After Hitler: Recivilizing Germans, 1945-1995

Konrad H. Jarausch

This book deals with the transformation of Germany after the Second World War and the Holocaust into a Western, democratic, and therefore civilized country. It proceeds in three stages, beginning ... More

This book deals with the transformation of Germany after the Second World War and the Holocaust into a Western, democratic, and therefore civilized country. It proceeds in three stages, beginning with the Allied post-war policies of demilitarization, denazification, and decartelization. In the second part, it concentrates on the Westernization, inner democratization and generational rebellion of the 1960s, concluding with a section on the repudiation of Communism, the return to normalcy, and the issue of immigration during the 1990s.Less

After Redemption: Jim Crow and the Transformation of African American Religion in the Delta, 1875-1915

John M. Giggie

This book explores religious transformation in the lives of ex-slaves and their descendants living in the Arkansas and Mississippi Delta between the end of Reconstruction and the start of the Great ... More

This book explores religious transformation in the lives of ex-slaves and their descendants living in the Arkansas and Mississippi Delta between the end of Reconstruction and the start of the Great Migration. It argues that Delta blacks, who were overwhelmingly rural sharecroppers and tenant farmers, developed a rich and complex sacred culture during this era. They forged a new religious culture by integrating their spiritual life with many of the defining features of the post‐Reconstruction South, including the rise of segregation and racial violence, the emergence of new forms of technology like train travel, the growth of black fraternal orders, and the rapid expansion of the consumer market. Experimenting with new symbols of freedom and racial respectability, forms of organizational culture, regional networks of communication, and popular notions of commodification and consumption enabled them to survive, make progress, and at times resist white supremacy. The book then evaluates the social consequences of these changes and shows in particular how the Holiness‐Pentecostal developed in large part as a rejection of them. It ends by probing how this new religious world influenced the Great Migration and black spiritual life in the 1920s and 1930s.Less

After Ruskin: The Social and Political Legacies of a Victorian Prophet, 1870–1920

Stuart Eagles

Ruskin often disparaged attempts to alleviate conditions in the cities, yet he financed the pioneering early housing experiments of Octavia Hill in London, and established a museum for working men in ... More

Ruskin often disparaged attempts to alleviate conditions in the cities, yet he financed the pioneering early housing experiments of Octavia Hill in London, and established a museum for working men in Sheffield. At the same time, he strove to promote the rural ideal and inspired the revival of some rural handicrafts. Both a self-proclaimed ‘violent Tory of the old school’ and a ‘communist’, the paradoxical John Ruskin, the leading Victorian art and social critic, inspired a younger generation with his political ideas and social experiments. A wide range of individuals, consciously indebted to him, engaged in social action designed to ameliorate the worst excesses of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century British industrial capitalism. Progressive political thinkers and social activists answered Ruskin's challenge to confront the ugliness and corruption of Victorian society, and to reject the hypocrisy of the utilitarian philosophy which underpinned it. This book is the first study to approach Ruskin's legacy in terms of the institutional and organisational contexts in which his ideas flourished. It recreates the associational culture of a network of influence which was united by a shared enthusiasm inspired by one man. The Guild of St. George embodied his social challenge, and provided a point of focus for his most loyal disciples. Many of the Oxford undergraduates inspired by his lectures, and his practical scheme to rebuild the road at Hinksey, helped to found and guide the university settlements. Ruskin societies emerged in the large cities to promote the study of his work and to effect civic reforms on Ruskinian lines. Many of the pioneers of the nascent Labour movement developed their political consciousnesses whilst reading his work. In the early life and career of John Howard Whitehouse, parliamentarian and educationist, these strands of influence combined, helping him to become Ruskin's truest disciple.Less

After the Expulsion: West Germany and Eastern Europe 1945-1990

Pertti Ahonen

This book connects two central problems encountered by the Federal Republic of Germany prior to reunification in 1990, both of them rooted in the Second World War. Domestically, the country had to ... More

This book connects two central problems encountered by the Federal Republic of Germany prior to reunification in 1990, both of them rooted in the Second World War. Domestically, the country had to integrate eight million expellees forced out of their homes in Central and Eastern Europe as a result of the lost war. Externally, it had to reestablish relations with Eastern Europe, despite the burdens of the Nazi past, the expulsions, and the ongoing East–West struggle during the Cold War. This book shows how the long-term consequences of the expellee problem significantly hindered West German efforts to develop normal ties with the East European states. In particular, it emphasizes a point largely overlooked in the existing literature: the way in which the political integration of the expellees into the Federal Republic had unanticipated negative consequences for the country's Ostpolitik.Less

After the Fall: German Policy in Occupied France, 1940-1944

Thomas J. Laub

After signing an armistice agreement on 22 June 1940, Adolf Hitler placed the German army in charge of occupied France and ordered the military government to supervise the Vichy regime and maintain ... More

After signing an armistice agreement on 22 June 1940, Adolf Hitler placed the German army in charge of occupied France and ordered the military government to supervise the Vichy regime and maintain security. Viewing World War II as a struggle between nation‐states, the military commander in France, Otto von Stülpnagel, cultivated French support, placed industrial resources at the disposal of the German war effort, and maintained ‘security’ by capturing enemy soldiers and Allied spies. Initially barred from the Hexagon, Göring's Office of the Four Year Plan, Himmler's SS, and Ribbentrop's Foreign Office adopted an expanded definition of security, argued that the Reich had to combat the so‐called Jewish conspiracy to maintain order, and secured Hitler's favor. In conjunction with Alfred Rosenberg and the French government, they launched an anti‐Semitic campaign of defamation, discrimination, and despoliation. Hitler used assassinations as a pretext for genocide and ordered subordinates to answer resistance activity with deadly reprisals and massive deportations that focused on Jews. Stülpnagel condemned anti‐Semitic measures and disproportionate hostage executions as impolitic distractions and resigned his command. Astute political tactics helped the Himmler seize control of German security forces but alienated the military government and, later, the Vichy regime. With limited support from French and German colleagues, the SS could only deport 75,000 French Jews: Fritz Sauckel's labor organization impressed approximately 850,000 workers into the German war economy by cooperating with French and German colleagues. Accommodation explains divergent results of select German policies, clarifies the inner workings of the Nazi regime, and elucidates decisions made by Prime Ministers Pierre Laval and François Darlan.Less