Bøger udgivet af University Press of Kansas

An account of the link between Locke's thought and the American Founding. The author argues that previous writers have misread Locke's influence on the Founders: he portrays the philosopher as a moderate 17th-century moralist advocating an individualism that fits well with classic republicanism.

Flynn chronicles the draft's military and strategic successes and failures in America's mid-century wars. He shows how major institutions and lobbies representing science, education, and various professions and religions influenced it and how the selective character of the draft eventually made the system inequitable and helped cause its downfall.

Long before the current calls for national service, civic responsibility, and the restoration of community values, the Progressives initiated a remarkably similar challenge. Eldon Eisenach traces the evolution of this powerful national movement from its theoretical origins through its dramatic rise and sudden demise, and shows why their philosophy still speaks to us with such eloquence.

The Pacific Northwest has always invoked images of lush forested landscapes and travelog vistas. More recently, such images have been marred by much-publicized controversies pitting spotted owls and salmon against logging interests and power companies. But, as Robert Bunting shows, such conflicts are only the most recent emblems of the competition for dominion in the region.

Most people think Star Wars was Reagan's idea, but its roots reach decades farther back. Military historian Don Baucom traces them to the dawn of the atomic age in 1944. In this first scholarly account of the origins of SDI, Baucom brings together the political, technological, and strategic forces that have shaped the history of ballistic missile defenses from World War II to the present.

Before the federal constitution was written, the Confederate Congress established a policy providing land grants for local and state governments to support public schools. Compiling information from the twenty-two states that still own such trust lands, the authors provide a rare look at public land management from a state rather than federal government perspective.

This text tells the story of how John Kriss made large-scale farming work. It shows how he kept records of crops and rainfall to manage the land carefully, farming thousands of acres in an environmentally sensitive way and retaining a viable operation even during the Dust Bowl years.

Presenting a significant new interpretation of Napoleonic warfare, Robert M. Epstein argues persuasively that the true origins of modern war can be found in the Franco-Austrian War of 1809. Epstein contends that the 1809 war had more in common with the American Civil War and subsequent conflicts than with the decisive Napoleonic campaigns that preceded it.

Over a century ago, tallgrass prairie stretched over most of what is now Iowa, Illinois, southern Minnesota, northern Missouri, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. Today only a few scattered patches remain. The author traces the history of the prairie and examines grassland ecology.

An outstanding contribution to the growing literature in world-systems theory, Kathleen Schwartzman's study of the first Portuguese republic demonstrates the significant ways in which a nation's social and political structures are shaped by its position in the global economy.

Intriguing place names abound in Kansas. This handy place name gazatteer is both a valuable reference and a source of good fun.

Attuned to the revival of moral concern in public and private life, Edmund Pincoffs argues in Quandaries and Virtues that the "structures known as ethical theories are more threats to moral sanity and balance than instruments for their attainment because ethical theories are, by nature, reductive."

More than fifty years after repeal of the Volstead Act, the US continues to debate the issues surrounding the use and control of alcohol. Until now, however, there has been no broadly interpretive social history that chronicled prohibition in Kansas. Robert Bader's comprehensive account presents an even-handed analysis of the reform movement and of the role of women and of religion in it.

By the end of the Civil War, fatalities from that conflict had far exceeded previous American experience, devastating families and communities alike. As John Neff shows, commemorating the 620,000 lives lost proved to be a persistent obstacle to the hard work of reuniting the nation, as every memorial observation compelled recollections of the war.

Written for both scholars and students, this book explains how and why social issues come to be defined in different ways, how these definitions are expressed in the world of politics, and what consequences these definitions have for government action and agenda-setting dynamics.

War breeds myths, especially those made up by the vanquished to explain their loss. Occasionally the myths of the defeated centre on prisoners of war (POWs) and those missing in action (MIAs). Traumatic Defeat takes a close, comparative look at two cases of this kind of mythmaking - in West Germany in the wake of World War II and in the US after the Vietnam War.

Tells the story of Robert Kindred's brazen theft of irreplaceable antique illustrations and maps from academic libraries across the US - a crime spree that left the irredeemable wreck of countless rare books in its wake. Travis McDade's account of Kindred's pillaging and the paper trail that led to his capture unfolds with the drama of a true crime page-turner.

At the turn of the twentieth century, soybeans grew on so little of America's land that nobody bothered to track the total. By the year 2000, they covered upward of 70 million acres. How this little-known Chinese transplant turned into a ubiquitous component of American farming, culture, and cuisine is the story Matthew Roth tells in Magic Bean: The Rise of Soy in America.

A comprehensive history of the legal struggle over child labor in America, from the earliest state regulations, to the landmark Supreme Court decisions culminating in U.S. v. Darby Lumber.

Within eight turbulent months in 1974 Gerald Ford went from the United States House of Representatives, where he was the minority leader, to the White House as the countrys first and only unelected president. His unprecedented rise to power, after Richard Nixons equally unprecedented fall, has garnered the lions share of scholarly attention devoted to Americas thirty-eighth president. But Gerald Fords (19132006) life and career in and out of Washington spanned nearly the entire twentieth century. Ambition, Pragmatism, and Party captures for the first time the full scope of Fords long and remarkable political life.The man who emerges from these pages is keenly ambitious, determined to climb the political ladder in Washington, and loyal to his party but not a political ideologue. Drawing on interviews with family and congressional and administrative officials, presidential historian Scott Kaufman traces Fords path from a Depression-era childhood through service in World War II to entry into Congress shortly after the Cold War began. He delves deeply into the workings of Congress and legislative-executive relations, offering insight into Fords role as the House minority leader in a time of conservative insurgency in the Republican Party.Kaufmans account of the Ford presidency provides a new perspective on how human rights figured in the making of U.S. foreign policy in the Cold War era, and how environmental issues figured in the making of domestic policy. It also presents a close look at the 1976 presidential electionemphasizing the significance of image in that contestand extensive coverage of Fords post-presidency. In sum, Ambition, Pragmatism, and Party is the most comprehensive political biography of Gerald Ford and will become the definitive resource on the thirty-eighth president of the United States.

Was the Iraq war really about oil? As a senior oil advisor for the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) and briefly as minister of oil, Gary Vogler thought he knew. But while doing research for a book about his experience in Iraq, Vogler discovered that what he knew was not the whole storyor even the true story. The Iraq war did have an oil agenda underlying it, one that Vogler had previously denied. This book is his attempt to set the record straight.Iraq and the Politics of Oil is a fascinating behind-the-scenes account of the role of the US government in the Iraqi oil sector since 2003. Vogler describes the prewar oil planning and the important decisions made during hostilities to get Iraqi oil flowing several months ahead of schedule. He reveals how, amid the instability of 2006 (largely fueled by the arrogance of early US decisions), the fixing of the Bayji Refinery contributed significantly to the success of the oil sector in the Sunni part of northern Iraq during and after the surge. Vogler gives us an expert insiders view of the largest oilfield auctions in the history of the international oil industry, and his account shows how US Forces focus on a single Iraqi point of failure in 2007 was a primary factor in the record productions and exports of 2012 through 2017.But under the successes so deftly chronicled here, a darker political narrative finally emerges, one that reaches back to the decision to go to war with Iraq. Uncovering it, Vogler revises our understanding of what we were doing in Iraq, even as he gives us a critical, close-up view of that fraught enterprise.

Late in 1967, American officials and military officers pushed an optimistic view of the Vietnam War. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) said that the war was being won, and that Communist strength in South Vietnam was declining. Then came the Tet Offensive of 1968. In its broadest and simplest outline, the conventional wisdom about the offensivethat it was a military defeat for the Communists but a political victory for them, because it undermined support for the war in the United Statesis correct. But much that has been written about the Tet Offensive has been misleading. Edwin Mose shows that the Communist campaign shocked the American public not because the American media exaggerated its success, but because it was a bigger campaignlarger in scale, much longer in duration, and resulting in more American casualtiesthan most authors have acknowledged. MACV, led by General William Westmoreland, issued regular estimates of enemy strength in South Vietnam. During 1967, intelligence officers at MACV were increasingly required to issue low estimates to show that the war was being won. Their underestimation of enemy strength was most extreme in January 1968, just before the Tet Offensive. The weak Communist force depicted in MACV estimates would not have been capable of sustaining heavy combat month after month like they did in 1968.Mose also explores the errors of the Communists, using Vietnamese sources. The first wave of Communist attacks, at the end of January 1968, showed gross failures of coordination. Communist policy throughout 1968 and into 1969 was wildly overoptimistic, setting impossible goals for their forces.While acknowledging the journalists and historians who have correctly reported various parts of the story, Mose points out widespread misunderstandings in regard to the strength of Communist forces in Vietnam, the disputes among American intelligence agencies over estimates of enemy strength, the actual pattern of combat in 1968, the effects of Tet on American policy, and the American medias coverage of all these issues.

With films ranging from High Noon to Guess Whos Coming to Dinner, Stanley Kramer (19132001) was one of the most successful and prolific director-producers of his day. But even as critics praised his courage in taking on such issues as nuclear war, racism, fascism, and the battle between science and religion, others condemned his work as emptily pretentious and hollow, falsely sentimental, overproduced. Whether Kramer was one of the great filmmakers of all time (Kevin Spacey at the Golden Globe Awards) or one of Hollywoods worst directors (preeminent film critic Andrew Sarris in The Village Voice), he had a strong and undeniable influence on American culture during the Cold War. Producer of Controversy is the first book to take a close-up look at Kramers career, films, and liberal politics in an effort to explain his contributions and historical significance.Kramer learned filmmaking within the old studio system, but over a career spanning forty years he did much to shape the independent moviemaking that emerged after World War II. Jennifer Frost pays particular attention to four of his key message moviesThe Defiant Ones, On the Beach, Inherit the Wind, and Judgment at Nurembergto show how Kramers controversial films opened up public debate about the most important issues of his timeamong average filmgoers as well as professional critics, political commentators, and public figures. In this context, she for the first time fully documents the Hollywood Rights attacks on Kramer in the 1950s; details his resistance to the anticommunist Red Scare and the Hollywood blacklist; exposes his role as a cultural diplomat with the Soviet Union; and reveals his important contribution to the liberal and radical politics of the 1960s. Her book is at once an absorbing work of cultural history and a thoroughgoing reassessment of Stanley Kramers place in the pantheon of American filmmakers.

The Kaiser's military theorists have often been portrayed as narrow-minded thinkers wedded to an outmoded way of war. This book argues that they were fully aware of the implications of advanced weaponry and that the slaughter of World War I was due to deficient training amongst younger officers.

The American conservative movement as we know it faces an existential crisis as the nation's demographics shift away from its core constituentsolder white middle-class Christians. It is the American conservatism that we dont know that concerns George Hawley in this book. During its ascendancy, leaders within the conservative establishment have energetically policed the movement's boundaries, effectively keeping alternative versions of conservatism out of view. Returning those neglected voices to the story, Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism offers a more complete, complex, and nuanced account of the American right in all its dissonance in history and in our day.The right-wing intellectual movements considered here differ both from mainstream conservatism and from each other when it comes to fundamental premises, such as the value of equality, the proper role of the state, the importance of free markets, the place of religion in politics, and attitudes toward race. In clear and dispassionate terms, Hawley examines localists who exhibit equal skepticism toward big business and big government, paleoconservatives who look to the distant past for guidance and wish to turn back the clock, radical libertarians who are not content to be junior partners in the conservative movement, and various strains of white supremacy and the radical right in America.In the Internet age, where access is no longer determined by the select few, the independent right has far greater opportunities to make its many voices heard. This timely work puts those voices into context and historical perspective, clarifying our understanding of the American rightpast, present, and future.

The Election of 1860 by a preeminent scholar of American history disrupts the familiar narrative for this pivotal election with a clearer and more comprehensive account of how the election unfolded and what it was actually about.

Chronicles the Supreme Court's 1967 decision in In re Gault, the landmark decision that's been widely celebrated as the most important children's rights case of the twentieth century. Addresses one of the fundamental and recurring problems in the history of law and society--how to treat young offenders.