Bøger udgivet af UNIV PR OF KANSAS

What began as a neighborhood party during the summer of 1942 led to the largest mass murder trial in California's history. After young Jose Diaz was found murdered near Los Angeles' Sleepy Lagoon reservoir, 600 Mexican Americans were rounded up by the police, 24 were indicted, and 17 were convicted. But thanks to the efforts of crusading lawyers, Hollywood celebrities, and Mexican Americans throughout the nation, all 17 convictions were thrown out in an appellate decision that cited lack of evidence, coerced testimony, deprivation of the right to counsel, and judicial misconduct.Mark Weitz chronicles the Sleepy Lagoon case (People v. Zammora) from the streets of L.A.'s Mexican-American neighborhoods to the criminal courts, through the appeals process, and to the ultimate release of the convicted. In the process, Weitz opens a window on the uneasy world of Hispanic-Anglo relations, which, exacerbated by an influx of Mexican immigrants, had simmered beneath the surface in California for a century and reached the boiling point by 1942. By demonstrating how an environment of hostility and fear had fostered a breakdown in the legal protections that should have been afforded to the Sleepy Lagoon defendants, Weitz also illuminates a vital episode in the evolution of defendants' rights--including the right to counsel and a fair and impartial trial.As the case unfolded, the prosecution and local media drew ominous comparisons between the supposed dangers posed by the Mexican-American defendants and the threat allegedly posed by thousands of Japanese Americans, whose sympathies had been called into question after Pearl Harbor. Weitz shows how Zammora demonstrates what it is like to literally be tried in the court of public opinion where the "opinion" has been shaped before the trial even begins.Now, as Americans once again feel threatened by outsiders--whether Islamic jihadists or illegal immigrants--Zammora provides a mirror showing us how we acted then compared to how we respond now. While much of what occurred in 1942 L.A. was unique to its time and place, Weitz's compelling narrative shows that many of the social, political, and culture issues that dominated America then are still with us today.

In the same week that Union forces triumphed at Gettysburg, they also captured the river fortress at Vicksburg, Mississippi. Although much less memorialized than Gettysburg, the fall of Vicksburg was every bit as crucial to the Union cause.

This interdiciplinary series explores the interplay between resource exploitation and economic, social, and political experiences in the American West.

First Lady Betty Ford will long be remembered for her active support of the Equal Rights Amendment, her struggles with breast cancer and substance abuse, and her later involvement with the addiction treatment center that bears her name. But perhaps more than these, Betty Ford will stand as a paragon of candor and courage, an outspoken woman whose public positions did not always conform with those of her husband. An independent, free spirit who regularly ranks among the most-admired First Ladies, Betty Ford is considered by many to be the most outspoken since Eleanor Roosevelt: she spoke her mind publicly and frequently, sometimes sending the president's political advisors running for cover. This is the first book to address the successes and failures of her advocacy, the effect of her candor, and the overall impact of her brief tenure as First Lady. John Robert Greene traces Betty Ford's problems and triumphs from her childhood through her husband's entire political career, including his controversial presidency, which thrust her into an unrelenting media spotlight. He then tells how she confronted her personal demons and became a symbol of courage for women throughout the nation. Contrasting the sometimes harsh assessments of historians with the respect in which she continues to be held, Greene examines Betty Ford's outspoken opinions on abortion and women's rights and suggests that her views hampered Gerald Ford's ability to forge a coalition within the GOP and may well have been a factor in his presidential defeat. Afterwards, as the author highlights, Betty Ford remained a role model for people suffering from addictions and personal pain, and made seminal contributions in the fieldof public advocacy for women's health issues and substance abuse. The Betty Ford Center especially stands as a lasting tribute to her foresight and caring. Greene concludes that, while Gerald Ford wanted to restore an aura of honesty to the presidency, in many ways it was h

The Plains states in the late 1800s flung open their political doors to the Populist Party while their fellow midwestern neighbors to the east left it standing on the porch. Why the contrasting receptions? Traditionally the disparity has been solely attributed to economic differences. A superficially logical answer, says Jeffrey Ostler, but too simple.In the past, scholars of Populism have simply assumed that the People's Party thrived in areas where farmers suffered severe and unique economic hardship and that prosperous areas had no need for a third party. But Ostler contends that the distinction historians have made between "hardship" on the Plains and "prosperity" to the east is overdrawn. All farmers were affected by the deflationary economy of the 1870s and 1880s, and for indebted farmers everywhere, trapped between the money market and the market for crops, the late nineteenth-century economy worked like a vise.Through a comparison of economics and politics in two Populist states--Kansas and Nebraska--and one non-Populist state--Iowa--Ostler shows that economic conditions alone cannot explain why the People's Party flourished or floundered. The contours of the existing political order, he shows, played a key role. Although all three were staunchly Republican after the Civil War, they had gone their own political ways by the mid 1880s. Iowa's system evolved into a two-party competition between Republicans and Democrats while Kansas and Nebraska remained dominated by the Republicans, making them ripe for a political challenge.This book not only helps explain why Populism failed to become a national movement but also illuminates the perennial question of why third parties have met with little success in the United States.