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Books > History > History of other lands
During the Civil War, southerners produced a vast body of writing
about their northern foes, painting a picture of a money-grubbing,
puritanical, and infidel enemy. Damn Yankees! explores the
proliferation of this rhetoric and demonstrates how the perpetual
vilification of northerners became a weapon during the war,
fostering hatred and resistance among the people of the
Confederacy. Drawing from speeches, cartoons, editorials, letters,
and diaries, Damn Yankees! examines common themes in southern
excoriation of the enemy. In sharp contrast to the presumed
southern ideals of chivalry and honor, Confederates claimed that
Yankees were rootless vagabonds who placed profit ahead of fidelity
to religious and social traditions. Pervasive criticism of
northerners created a framework for understanding their behavior
during the war. When the Confederacy prevailed on the field of
battle, it confirmed the Yankees' reputed physical and moral
weakness. When the Yankees achieved military success, reports of
depravity against vanquished foes abounded, stiffening the resolve
of Confederate soldiers and civilians alike to protect their
homeland and the sanctity of their women from Union degeneracy.
From award-winning Civil War historian George C. Rable, Damn
Yankees! is the first comprehensive study of anti-Union speech and
writing, the ways these words shaped perceptions of and events in
the war, and the rhetoric's enduring legacy in the South after the
conflict had ended.
George Crook was one of the most prominent military figures of the
late-nineteenth-century Indian Wars. Yet today his name is largely
unrecognized despite the important role he played in such pivotal
events in western history as the Custer fight at the Little Big
Horn, the death of Crazy Horse, and the Geronimo campaigns. As Paul
Magid portrays Crook in this highly readable second volume of a
projected three-volume biography, the general was an innovative and
eccentric soldier, with a complex and often contradictory
personality, whose activities often generated intense controversy.
Though known for his uncompromising ferocity in battle, he
nevertheless respected his enemies and grew to know and feel
compassion for them. Describing campaigns against the Paiutes,
Apaches, Sioux, and Cheyennes, Magid's vivid narrative explores
Crook's abilities as an Indian fighter. The Apaches, among the
fiercest peoples in the West, called Crook the Gray Fox after an
animal viewed in their culture as a herald of impending death.
Generals Grant and Sherman both regarded him as indispensable to
their efforts to subjugate the western tribes. Though noted for his
aggressiveness in combat, Crook was a reticent officer who rarely
raised his voice, habitually dressed in shabby civilian attire, and
often rode a mule in the field. He was also self-confident to the
point of arrogance, harbored fierce grudges, and because he marched
to his own beat, got along poorly with his superiors. He had many
enduring friendships both in- and outside the army, though he
divulged little of his inner self to others and some of his closest
comrades knew he could be cold and insensitive. As Magid relates
these crucial episodes of Crook's life, a dominant contradiction
emerges: while he was an unforgiving warrior in the field, he not
infrequently risked his career to do battle with his military
superiors and with politicians in Washington to obtain fair
treatment for the very people against whom he fought. Upon hearing
of the general's death in 1890, Chief Red Cloud spoke for his Sioux
people: ""He, at least, never lied to us. His words gave the people
hope.
In August 1972, military leader and despot Idi Amin expelled Asian
Ugandans from the country, professing to return control of the
economy to "Ugandan citizens." Within ninety days, 50,000 Ugandans
of South Asian descent were forced to leave and seek asylum
elsewhere; nearly 8,000 resettled in Canada. This major migration
event marked the first time Canada accepted a large group of
predominantly Muslim, non-European, non-white refugees.Shezan
Muhammedi's Gifts from Amin documents how these women, children,
and men-including doctors, engineers, business leaders, and members
of Muhammedi's own family-responded to the threat in Uganda and
rebuilt their lives in Canada. Building on extensive archival
research and oral histories, Muhammedi provides a nuanced case
study on the relationship between public policy, refugee
resettlement, and assimilation tactics in the twentieth century. He
demonstrates how displaced peoples adeptly maintain multiple
regional, ethnic, and religious identities while negotiating new
citizenship. Not passive recipients of international aid, Ugandan
Asian refugees navigated various bureaucratic processes to secure
safe passage to Canada, applied for family reunification, and made
concerted efforts to integrate into-and give back to-Canadian
society, all the while reshaping Canada's refugee policies in ways
still evident today. As the numbers of forcibly displaced people
around the world continue to rise, Muhammedi's analysis of
policymaking and refugee experience is eminently relevant. The
first major oral history project dedicated to the stories of
Ugandan Asian refugees in Canada, Gifts from Amin explores the
historical context of their expulsion from Uganda, the multiple
motivations behind Canada's decision to admit them, and their
resilience over the past fifty years.
Bland Simpson, the celebrated bard of North Carolina's sound
country, has blended history, observation of nature, and personal
narrative in many books to chronicle the people and places of
eastern Carolina. Yet he has spent much of his life in the state's
Piedmont, with regular travels into its western mountains. Here,
for the first time, Simpson brings his distinctive voice and way of
seeing to bear on the entirety of his home state, combining
storytelling and travelogue to create a portrait of the Old North
State with care and humor. Three of the state's finest
photographers come along to guide the journey: Simpson's wife and
creative partner Ann Cary Simpson, professional photographer Scott
Taylor, and writer and naturalist Tom Earnhardt. Their photos,
combined with Simpson's rich narrative, will inspire readers to
consider not only what North Carolina has been and what it is but
also what we hope it will be. This book belongs on the shelf of
longtime residents, newcomers, and visitors alike.
Bringing together some of the last Holocaust survivor stories in
living memory, After the Holocaust shares Jewish scholarship,
activism, poetry, and personal narratives which tackle the changing
face of human rights education in the 21st century. The collected
voices draw on decades of research on Holocaust history to discuss
education, broader human rights abuses, genocide, internment, and
oppression. Advancing the dialogue between civic advocacy, public
remembrance, and research, contributors discuss how the Holocaust
is taught and remembered. By including additional perspectives on
the context of Canadian antisemitism, the legacy of human rights
abuses of Indigenous Peoples in Canada, and the internment of
Japanese Canadians in World War II, After the Holocaust examines
the ways the Holocaust changed thinking around human rights
legislation and memorialization on a global scale. "The first- and
second-generation survivor accounts are treasures-invaluable
reflections that anchor this collection." - David MacDonald ,
author of The Sleeping Giant Awakens: Genocide, Indian Residential
Schools, and the Challenge of Conciliation
In The Torture Camp on Paradise Street, Ukrainian journalist and
writer Stanislav Aseyev details his experience as a prisoner from
2015 to 2017 in a modern-day concentration camp overseen by the
Federal Security Bureau of the Russian Federation (FSB) in the
Russian-controlled city of Donetsk. This memoir recounts an endless
ordeal of psychological and physical abuse, including torture and
rape, inflicted upon the author and his fellow inmates over the
course of nearly three years of illegal incarceration spent largely
in the prison called Izoliatsiia (Isolation). Aseyev also reflects
on how a human can survive such atrocities and reenter the world to
share his story. Since February 2022, numerous cases of illegal
detainment and extreme mistreatment have been reported in the
Ukrainian towns and villages occupied by Russian forces during the
full-scale invasion. These and other war crimes committed by
Russian troops speak to the horrors wreaked upon Ukrainians forced
to live in Russian-occupied zones. It is important to remember,
however, that the torture and killing of Ukrainians by Russian
security and military forces began long before 2022. Rendered
deftly into English, Aseyev's compelling account offers a critical
insight into the operations of Russian forces in the occupied
territories of Ukraine.
One man's immigration to the Canadian Prairies in the early 1930s
reveals the character of Canada today as sharply as it did long
ago. In 1930, a young Jewish man, Yehuda Eisenstein, arrived in
Canada from Poland to escape persecution and in the hopes of
starting a new life for himself and his young family. Like
countless other young European men who came to Canada from
"non-preferred" countries, Yehuda was only granted entry because he
claimed to be single, starting his Canadian life with a lie. He
trusted that his wife and children would be able to follow after he
had gained legal entry and found work. For years, Yehuda was given
two choices: remain in Canada alone, or return home to Poland to be
with his family. Who Gets In is author Norman Ravvin's pursuit of
his grandfather's first years in Canada. It is a deeply personal
family memoir born from literary and archival recovery. It is also
a shocking critique of Canadian immigration policies that directly
challenges Canada's reputation as a tolerant, multicultural
country, a criticism that extends to our present moment, as war
once again continues to displace millions from their homes.
Ice Ghosts weaves together the epic story of the Lost Franklin
Expedition of 1845-whose two ships and crew of 129 were lost to the
Arctic ice-with the tale of the incredible discovery of the
flagship's wreck in 2014. Paul Watson, who was on the icebreaker
that led the discovery expedition, tells a fast-paced historical
adventure story: Sir John Franklin and the crew of the HMS Erebus
and Terror setting off in search of the fabled Northwest Passage,
the hazards they encountered and the reasons they were forced to
abandon ship hundreds of miles from the nearest outpost of
civilization, and the decades of searching that exposed rumours of
cannibalism and a few scattered papers and bones-until a
combination of Inuit lore and the latest science yielded a
discovery for the ages.
What do Americans want from immigration policy and why? In the rise
of a polarized and acrimonious immigration debate, leading accounts
see racial anxieties and disputes over the meaning of American
nationhood coming to a head. The resurgence of parochial identities
has breathed new life into old worries about the vulnerability of
the American Creed. This book tells a different story, one in which
creedal values remain hard at work in shaping ordinary Americans'
judgements about immigration. Levy and Wright show that perceptions
of civic fairness - based on multiple, often competing values
deeply rooted in the country's political culture - are the dominant
guideposts by which most Americans navigate immigration
controversies most of the time and explain why so many Americans
simultaneously hold a mix of pro-immigrant and anti-immigrant
positions. The authors test the relevance and force of the theory
over time and across issue domains.
The lower Mississippi River winds past the city of New Orleans
between enormous levees and a rim of sand, mud, and trees called
"the batture." On this remote and ignored piece of land thrives a
humanity unique to the region-ramblers, artists, drinkers, fishers,
rabbit hunters, dog walkers, sunset watchers, and refugees from
immigration, alimony, and other aspects of modern life. Author
Oliver A. Houck has frequented this place for the past twenty-five
years. Down on the Batture describes a life, pastoral, at times
marginal, but remarkably fecund and surprising. From this place he
meditates on Louisiana, the state of the waterway, and its larger
environs. He describes all the actors who have played lead roles on
the edge of the mightiest river of the continent, and includes in
his narrative plantations, pollution, murder, land grabs, keelboat
brawlers, slave rebellions, the Corps of Engineers, and the oil
industry. Houck draws from his experience in New Orleans since the
early 1970s in the practice and teaching of law. He has been a
player in many of the issues he describes, although he does not
undertake to argue them here. Instead, story by story, he uses the
batture to explore the forces that have shaped and spell out the
future of the region. The picture emerges of a place that-for all
its tangle of undergrowth, drifting humanity, shifting dimensions
in the rise and fall of floodwater-provides respite and sanctuary
for values that are original to America and ever at risk from the
homogenizing forces of civilization.
The initial confrontation between Union general Ulysses S. Grant
and Confederate general Robert E. Lee in Virginia during the
Overland Campaign has not until recently received the same degree
of scrutiny as other Civil War battles. The first round of combat
between the two renowned generals spanned about six weeks in May
and early June 1864. The major skirmishes Wilderness, Spotsylvania,
and Cold Harbor rivaled any other key engagement in the war. While
the strength and casualties in Grant s army remain uncontested,
historians know much less about Lee s army. Nonetheless, the
prevailing narrative depicts Confederates as outstripped nearly two
to one, and portrays Grant suffering losses at a rate nearly double
that of Lee. As a result, most Civil War scholars contend that the
campaign proved a clear numerical victory for Lee but a tactical
triumph for Grant. Questions about the power of Lee s army stem
mainly from poor record keeping by the Confederates as well as an
inordinate number of missing or lost battle reports. The complexity
of the Overland Campaign, which consisted of several smaller
engagements in addition to the three main clashes, led to
considerable historic uncertainty regarding Lee s army. Significant
doubts persist about the army s capability at the commencement of
the drive, the amount of reinforcements received, and the total of
casualties sustained during the entire campaign and at each of the
major battles. In Lee s Army during the Overland Campaign, Alfred
C. Young III addresses this deficiency by providing for the first
time accurate information regarding the Confederate side throughout
the conflict. The results challenge prevailing assumptions, showing
clearly that Lee s army stood far larger in strength and size and
suffered considerably higher casualties than previously believed.
Many are aware that gerrymandering exists and suspect it plays a
role in our elections, but its history goes far deeper, and its
impacts are far greater, than most realize. In his latest book,
Brent Tarter focuses on Virginia's long history of gerrymandering
to uncover its immense influence on the state's politics and to
provide perspective on how the practice impacts politics
nationally.Offering the first in-depth historical study of
gerrymanders in Virginia, Tarter exposes practices going back to
nineteenth century and colonial times and explains how they
protected land owners' and slave owners' interests. The
consequences of redistricting and reapportionment in modern
Virginia-in effect giving a partisan minority the upper hand in all
public policy decisions-become much clearer in light of this
history. Where the discussion of gerrymandering has typically
emphasized political parties' control of Congress, Tarter focuses
on the state legislatures that determine congressional district
lines and, in most states, even those of their own districts. On
the eve of the 2021 session of the General Assembly, which will
redraw district lines for Virginia's state Senate and House of
Delegates, as well as for the U.S. House of Representatives,
Tarter's book provides an eye-opening investigation of
gerrymandering and its pervasive effect on our local, state, and
national politics and government.
'It is a story full of drama, with the Nile, the pyramids and the
Valley of the Kings as backdrop. That A World Beneath the Sands is
also a subtle and stimulating study of the paradoxes of
19th-century colonialism is a bonus indeed.' - Tom Holland,
Guardian What could be more exciting, more exotic or more intrepid
than digging in the sands of Egypt in the hope of discovering
golden treasures from the age of the pharaohs? Our fascination with
ancient Egypt goes back to the ancient Greeks. But the heyday of
Egyptology was undoubtedly the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. This golden age of scholarship and adventure is neatly
book-ended by two epoch-making events: Champollion's decipherment
of hieroglyphics in 1822 and the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb by
Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon a hundred years later. In A World
Beneath the Sands, the acclaimed Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson tells
the riveting stories of the men and women whose obsession with
Egypt's ancient civilisation drove them to uncover its secrets.
Champollion, Carter and Carnarvon are here, but so too are their
lesser-known contemporaries, such as the Prussian scholar Karl
Richard Lepsius, the Frenchman Auguste Mariette and the British
aristocrat Lucie Duff-Gordon. Their work - and those of others like
them - helped to enrich and transform our understanding of the Nile
Valley and its people, and left a lasting impression on Egypt, too.
Travellers and treasure-hunters, ethnographers and epigraphers,
antiquarians and archaeologists: whatever their motives, whatever
their methods, all understood that in pursuing Egyptology they were
part of a greater endeavour - to reveal a lost world, buried for
centuries beneath the sands.
In 1898 after the murder of a white woman, two young Seminoles were
chained and burned alive. Hiding behind a wall of silence and
fearing reprisal for identifying their executioners, virtually the
entire white community became involved with the ghastly execution.
In this absorbing narrative Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., captures
the horror and details the events that incited this alarming act of
mob violence and community complicity. Seminole Burning not only
gives an account of a dramatic, violent event in Indian-white
relations but also provides insights into the social, economic, and
legal history of the times. Although occurring during the heyday of
lynching in America, the execution of the young Seminoles proved to
be not just another sad episode in the history of injustice.
Apparently a vendetta organized by the extended family of the dead
woman's husband, it was orchestrated by landless whites, who for a
week after her murder, had harassed and terrorized more than twenty
Seminole men and boys in selecting victims. For having taken them
out of Indian Territory and into Oklahoma for execution, the mob
leaders became the target of federal authorities. In the first
successful prosecution of lynchers in the Southwest, a special
prosecutor revealed underlying motives for the crime and convicted
six. Seminole Burning is not just the story of a lynching and an
account of how landless Americans invaded Indian Territory. By
placing this tragic case in context and against the large backdrop
of history, Littlefield connects it to federal expansion of court
jurisdiction, to federal attempts to dissolve land titles of the
Five Civilized Tribes, and indeed to the establishing of the state
of Oklahoma.
Charles Wilson did it all. He arrived in the West in 1905, the year
of Saskatchewan's birth, and experienced all the hardship, success,
and suffering that the province enjoyed and endured on its path to
becoming one of the most favoured places in Canada today.
"In the Temple of the Rain God" explores how governments and
individuals struggled to save western agriculture from the crushing
mountain of farm debt and--through Charles Wilson's eyes--tells the
dramatic story of the first fifty years of Saskatchewan history.
Offering a unique window into the Old Colony Mennonite community in
Saskatchewan, this biography of Herman D.W. Friesen reveals the
life of a man who attempted to modernize his community, often in
opposition to traditional religious beliefs. The story begins on
the Hague-Osler Mennonite reserve in the 1910s and 20s. At this
time the government was pressuring Mennonite communities to send
their children to province-run schools. This set off a series of
migrations, in which Mennonites left for Mexico, Central America,
and other parts of Canada. During the watershed decade of the
1960s, Friesen was elected as a minister, and later as the
aeltester (Bishop). Despite growing up in an environment filled
with intense governmental conflict and considerable suspicion
towards "the English outsiders," he did not try to organize another
migration out of Saskatchewan. Instead, taking a unique approach to
leadership, Friesen tried to navigate a gradual process of
accommodation to the changes taking place in the province. Included
in the book are Friesen's sermons, translated from German,
providing a unique glimpse into the Old Colony Mennonite theology
that aided him in guiding the church in a strategy of gradual
cultural accommodation.
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