bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Irish Zionist
Authors: O’Dwyer Attorney Paul , Polner Robert , Tubridy Michael
Published: October 2024

This chapter recounts the chilly November day in 1990 when Newsday columnist Jim Dwyer traveled to Israel from New York City to cover the funeral of Meir Kahane. Dwyer observed the hostile atmosphere at the funeral, which was marked by aggressive supporters of the late militant. The chapter then shifts to Paul O'Dwyer's post-World War II support for militant Zionists in New York and how he was driven by parallels he saw with Irish nationalism. It discusses O'Dwyer's involvement with the Bergson Group in aiding the Irgun, which reflected a broader American Jewish and non-Jewish support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland. It also traces the complex interplay of militant and mainstream Zionist movements, British colonial policies, and the contributions of the O'Dwyer brothers to Jewish causes, illustrating the historical and personal dimensions of their advocacy.
The Mountaintop
Authors: O’Dwyer Attorney Paul , Polner Robert , Tubridy Michael
Published: October 2024

This chapter focuses on Paul O'Dwyer's involvement in Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign, emphasizing his commitment to civil rights and social justice. O'Dwyer joined Jackson's campaign after Jackson visited Irish-born detainee Joe Doherty, who was imprisoned without bail for six years. It describes O'Dwyer's support for Jackson, which was fueled by Jackson's pledge to sign the MacBride Principles into law and his potential to become the first significant Black presidential contender. Despite Jackson's eventual loss to Michael Dukakis in the primaries, O'Dwyer's efforts highlighted his lifelong dedication to defending marginalized communities and advocating for human rights. The chapter touches on O'Dwyer's later endorsement of David Dinkins for mayor, showcasing his consistent support for Black leadership and his role in addressing racial and political challenges in New York City.
Missionary Diplomacy
Authors: Conroy-Krutz Emily
Published: October 2024

This book illuminates the crucial place of religion in nineteenth-century American diplomacy. From the 1810s through the 1920s, Protestant missionaries positioned themselves as key experts in the development of American relations in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, and the Middle East. Missionaries served as consuls, translators, and occasional trouble-makers who forced the State Department to take actions it otherwise would have avoided. Yet as decades passed, more Americans began to question the propriety of missionaries' power. Were missionaries serving the interests of American diplomacy? Or were they creating unnecessary problems? The book demonstrates that they were doing both. Across the century, missionaries forced the government to articulate new conceptions of the rights of US citizens abroad and of the role of the US as an engine of humanitarianism and religious freedom. By the time the US entered the first world war, missionary diplomacy had for nearly a century created the conditions for some Americans to embrace a vision of their country as an internationally engaged world power. This book exposes the longstanding influence of evangelical missions on the shape of American foreign relations.
Experts
Authors: Conroy-Krutz Emily
Published: October 2024

This chapter highlights Samuel Wells William's lecture tour about China, emphasizing the profound impact of missionary intelligence on American perceptions of foreign lands. In 1845, twelve years after Williams had left for Canton and Macao, he returned to the US and lectured to eager audiences and shared insights on Chinese polity and character. The chapter recounts that the Opium Wars had opened new ports and transformed Sino-American relations, and it describes William's audiences, who were hungry for information on economic opportunities and the spread of Christianity. The chapter also points out how missionary literature, including William's The Middle Kingdom, played a crucial role in educating Americans about distant lands and reinforced Western dominance over the East. By disseminating detailed information about foreign cultures, missionaries like Williams shaped American foreign policy and public interest in global affairs.
Witnesses
Authors: Conroy-Krutz Emily
Published: October 2024

This chapter examines British consul Roger Casement's 1903 investigation into the Congo Free State's atrocities, using the American Baptist Missionary Society's steamer for independence from colonial oversight. Casement's three-month journey aimed to uncover the truth about the oppressive rubber tax and violence under King Leopold II's rule, supported by Protestant missionaries. The chapter details how Casement highlighted the monopolistic exploitation and the failure to uphold promises from the Berlin and Brussels conferences, calling for political intervention. It discusses the investigation that spurred US and British missionaries to demand international action, eventually leading to the United States establishing its own consulate in the Congo. The chapter underscores the critical role of missionaries as witnesses to atrocities, noting the complex interplay between humanitarian concerns and political intervention in early twentieth-century diplomacy.
The Violence of Imperial Dissolution at the Periphery
Authors: Kushner Barak
Published: October 2024

This chapter discusses the violence of imperial dissolution. Three historical episodes provide insight into how the end of the empire and impediments to seeking justice complicated the beginning of the postwar period. The chapter provides an overview of the Shibuya Incident of 1946, the February 28 Incident in Taiwan, and the 1948 Jeju Island Incident. Archetypal incidents highlighted the difficulty of demobilized but weaponized societies where youths were recently disenfranchised from the empire. The chapter also explains that the continuation of instability in the wake of Japanese imperial dissolution would cast a long shadow on Korea, mainland Chinese society, and Taiwan for years to come.
The Geography of Power
Authors: Kushner Barak
Published: October 2024

This chapter examines the geography of power, particularly the political legitimacy in Republican China. It notes the advancement of the globalization of law and the internationalization of norms. The Chinese trials of Japanese war crimes were, at worst, a microcosm reflecting the horrors of the Japanese empire and, at best, a record of how the stated aims of the war were experienced at the local level. The chapter explains that nationality and the action of the crime do not heed state boundaries when primarily concerned with war and war crimes. It discusses the extent of finding justice in correlation with the KMT trials against Japanese war criminals.
Creating a Theater of Law in Mao’s China
Authors: Kushner Barak
Published: October 2024

This chapter explains that Mao Zedong announced the establishment of the People's Republic of China and simultaneously annulled all the Chinese Nationalist laws. Fundamentally, Communist ideology conceives of itself essentially as pursuing what the Soviets termed people's justice, which stressed the class nature of law deemed secondary to political goals. The chapter provides an overview of the efforts of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to study and investigate war crimes. The CCP trials reformed Japanese war criminals while also offering forms of justice to the Chinese public for crimes unrecognized amidst the KMT regime. The chapter explains the consequences of using confessions to provide insight into the sort of justice the CCP believed it was pursuing.
Afterlives of the Damned
Authors: Kushner Barak
Published: October 2024

This chapter considers the commemoration of justice and injustice in Taiwan, China, and Japan. It discusses the idealism of youth and the people silenced for so long while waves of political violence in China continued. Meanwhile, as Japan moved through the 1970s, the commemoration of the war developed into a larger international issue concerning former historical sites such as the Sugamo Prison site. The chapter clarifies that war crimes tribunals primarily aim to manage society following a calamitous event. It explains that the limitations of the processes and the gaps in selecting, deleting, and summarizing complex historical situations confuse and irritate the larger public.
Unlawful Acts or Strategies of Resistance?
Authors: Kalman Samuel
Published: October 2024

This chapter discusses crime and disruption of colonial order in Interwar French Algeria. Reformism held sway among educated and affluent Algerians until the end of World War II, with the so-called évolués demanding better treatment under French rule. With no end to French domination in sight, Algerians began to engage in demonstrable anticolonial dissent, often by violent means. Official responses to the threat throughout the region reflected broad imperial security concerns during the interwar era. By invoking police brutality and judicial bias, the colonial state moved toward tactics that would be used during the Algerian War of Independence and designed to intimidate and dislocate anticolonial resistance, no matter how insignificant.
Colonial Policing during Wartime
Authors: Kalman Samuel
Published: October 2024

This chapter provides an overview on colonial policing amidst wartime. In the metropole, many officers remained from the Third Republic days, and the regime did evince concern about their potential adherence to parliamentarism and opposition to Nazism. Unlike in the metropole, extreme-rightist figures and groups dominated the Algerian political scene. The chapter explains that the Vichy regime did not need to purge Algerian law enforcement. For police and gendarmes, fighting crime increasingly devolved into a political struggle and that meant fighting against resisters and undesirables. By the time of the liberation, policing in Algeria once again became somewhat normalized while promised reforms gave way to state violence.
Managing the Inversion
Authors: De Groot Michael
Published: October 2024

This chapter examines how the policies of the Reagan administration inadvertently completed the inversion of the US welfare empire. It notes that deflationary measures at home to prevent financial collapse aggravated the structural problems that resulted in the accumulation of debt. By further aligning US interests with economic globalization and promoting capital account liberalization, the Reagan administration accessed the world's savings and loosened the fiscal constraint. The chapter highlights that the inversion of the US welfare empire reinvigorated the US system of alliances. The United States had supported the development of Western Europe and Japan since the early Cold War and their long-term successes vindicated US strategy.
Schoolishness
Authors: Blum Susan D.
Published: October 2024

This book continues the author's journey as an anthropologist and educator. The author defines “schoolishness” as educational practices that emphasize packaged “learning,” unimaginative teaching, uniformity, constant evaluation by others, arbitrary forms, predetermined time, and artificial boundaries, resulting in personal and educational alienation, dependence, and dread. Drawing on critical, progressive, and feminist pedagogy in conversation with the anthropology of learning, and building on insights, the author proposes less-schoolish ways of learning in ten dimensions, to lessen the mismatch between learning in school and learning in the wild. She asks, if learning is our human “superpower,” why is it so difficult to accomplish in school? Every chapter compares the fake learning of schoolishness with successful examples of authentic learning, including in the author's own courses, which she scrutinizes critically. The book is a theory-based phenomenology of institutional education. It has moral, psychological, and educational arguments against schoolishness that, as the author notes, “rhymes with foolishness.”
Experiencing School
Authors: Blum Susan D.
Published: October 2024

This chapter looks into the issues prevalent while experiencing school. It highlights that schools are drenched, saturated with emotion and feelings and affect. School is all about the experiences and transformations of learners, but if so many people's experiences are negative, that is no mere side effect. The negative emotions in schools range from fear of sexual abuse, trauma, shame about others' judgment, and boredom that may result in troubles like nuisances and flunking. Moreover, schoolishness often conveys the notion of an absolute standard of perfection. The chapter elaborates on how schoolishness creates misery regardless of the goodness emerging from schools.
Genres of Production
Authors: Blum Susan D.
Published: October 2024

This chapter looks into the notions of artificiality, control, authenticity, and freedom as genres of production. It explains that the purposes of tests vary because some of them can be formative, summative, norm referenced, or criterion referenced, citing how grades via tests have come to function as one of the aims of schooling. Moreover, alternative or additional ways of assessing student learning include portfolios and observation. Schoolish doing is for evaluation and compliance and is often entirely predetermined, with rubrics, recipes, and formulas, so it has its own set of expectations and constraints. The chapter also mentions how schoolishness prepares students poorly for life beyond school.
Tech and Media
Authors: Blum Susan D.
Published: October 2024

This chapter focuses on the evolution of technology and media. Some technologies used in schools are just the same as those outside schools like computers, while some tech is unique to schools, including so-called Learning Management Systems (LMSs) and attendance software. The chapter notes technological tools that establish the assumption about teacher-centered structures. It considers the principle that any tech should contribute to and not impede the largest goal of helping students foster independent, confident, engaged, enjoyable, and cooperative learning. Since tech is a set of possibilities, temptations, limitations, and guidance, a more intentional understanding of tech allows it to be more humane and effective.
Introduction
Authors: Mahadeo Rahsaan
Published: October 2024

This chapter explores the concept of time from the perspective of temporal ownership and exploitation. It shifts the question from “What time is it?” to “Whose time is it?” to highlight the disparities between those who control time and those who are constrained by it. It also delves into the experiences of Black youth in urban spaces, illustrating how race and racism shape their perceptions of time. By challenging conventional notions of punctuality and linear time, the chapter underscores the importance of creating theoretical space to critique the temporalization of race and identity. It emphasizes the need to funk the clock, which is resisting temporal discipline and the oppressive structures tied to white, middle-class, and heteropatriarchal conceptions of time.
Transgressing Time in the Fast Life
Authors: Mahadeo Rahsaan
Published: October 2024

This chapter discusses the experiences of thirteen of the thirty youths interviewed at Run-a-Way who participated in the “fast life,” an insurgent form of time that defies (s)low-wage labor. It considers “trapping,” which involves making, selling, and distributing drugs, as a significant aspect of the fast life and symbolizes a spatial and temporal defiance among racialized groups. The fast life is linked to various status symbols like drugs, cars, and money and is seen as a way to counteract the financial and temporal bankruptcy faced by Black youths. The chapter explores how youths in racial enclosures, like the trap house, reject the nine-to-five jobs that undervalue their labor and time, opting instead for the lucrative yet risky fast life. It highlights the resourcefulness of Black youths who navigate the underground economy, sometimes turning to illegal means out of necessity.
Prescience within Present Orientations
Authors: Mahadeo Rahsaan
Published: October 2024

This chapter explores the pervasive future-oriented logic of political campaigns, such as those seen in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. Unlike politicians promoting a better tomorrow, these youths are circumspect about the future and are influenced by past and present violence. The chapter mentions seventeen-year-old Tanisha's ominous outlook on the future that reflects a deep connection to historical and ongoing oppression. It argues that Black youth, particularly in poor urbanized spaces, possess a unique prescience that foretells their futures based on their understanding of structural violence. It recognizes “deviant temporal perspectives” as a critical consciousness, demonstrating that Black youth are not only ahead of their time but ahead of time itself.
Conclusion
Authors: Mahadeo Rahsaan
Published: October 2024

This chapter explores the significance of time in the context of Black youth resistance and abolitionist thought. Reflecting on events such as the rally for Mumia Abu-Jamal's release and commemorating Prince's legacy, the chapter delves into the concept of the end of time as a metaphor for ending systemic oppression. Black youth at Run-a-Way challenge the temporal discipline imposed by White time, resisting punctuality, schooling, and liberal futurities. The chapter argues that unlearning oppressive systems is crucial for abolition and notes the need to render racialized violence and carceral logics obsolete. It emphasizes the importance of mutual aid, transformative justice, and the active role of Black youth in envisioning a world beyond the constraints of oppressive temporalities.
Brown v. Board and the Little Rock Desegregation Crisis
Authors: Wagner Steven
Published: October 2024

This chapter discusses President Dwight D. Eisenhower's decision to send federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, on September 24, 1957, which marked a pivotal moment in the fight for school desegregation. Despite his reluctance to publicly endorse the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, Eisenhower's decisive intervention at Little Rock ultimately assured the success of school desegregation. The chapter looks at criticisms of Eisenhower's civil rights record that often portrayed him as inactive compared to John F. Kennedy. It mentions Chief Justice Earl Warren, who believed Eisenhower's lack of public support for Brown v. Board exacerbated racial tensions. Although Eisenhower's indirect approach to enforcing desegregation faced criticism for lacking moral leadership, it nonetheless played a crucial role in the early stages of civil rights progress and foreshadowed the political realignments that would shape future U.S. politics.
Sociology of Corruption
Authors: Jancsics David
Published: October 2024

This book provides a fresh approach to the study of corruption in Hungary, which once seemed to be the most likely of the ex-communist bloc nations to catch up to the West and is, according to many experts and scholars, a country with a highly corrupt dynamic. Based on data from 2022, Hungary is now the most corrupt member state of the European Union. There is also a consensus among experts that a small clique of corrupt political actors has captured most Hungarian state institutions and a significant portion of the business sector. What fostered corruption in Hungary? What are the most typical forms of corruption in this country? What do Hungarians think about it? What is the role of prime minister Viktor Orbán in this? The book proposes a novel sociological theory of corruption focusing on social status and relationships, network structures, and power dynamics as important explanatory factors of corrupt behavior. Although the focus is on Hungary, the book's findings are applicable to other nations and cultural contexts.
Introduction
Authors: Guvenç Muna
Published: October 2024

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the various ways that the Kurdish movement has defended Kurdish identity and achieved territorial autonomy and recognition. Despite an ongoing campaign of coercion, oppression, and state violence, Diyarbakır—often called the informal capital of Turkish Kurdistan—became more “Kurdified” and more mobilized between 1999 and 2019 than at any time in the history of the Turkish Republic. In this context, the country’s largest Kurdish-populated city rose in stature to become the center of Kurdish mobilization. This book illustrates how, in the early 2000s, pro-Kurdish parties used municipal power and urban planning to resist state coercion and foster Kurdish nationhood in Turkey. The methodology in this study can be best understood as an ethnography of urban maneuvering. The book investigates how control of urban space and urban practices may enhance political mobilization and movements for social change.
Building the Frontier
Authors: Guvenç Muna
Published: October 2024

This chapter examines the case of urban renewal, demonstrating how the Turkish government sought to employ urban development as a tool to demobilize the Kurdish movement. It begins by looking at the dual-status administrative system (between governors and municipality) in cities and specifying the correlation between urban renewal and contestation. The chapter then considers how urban renewal emerged as an arena of contestation and rivalry between the pro-Kurdish municipalities and the central state. It discusses the urban maneuvers of the pro-Kurdish party amid the state’s fast-changing urban development laws and acts, and illustrates how the party’s strategic urban actions generated conditions of collectivity and manifestations of Kurdish community. In analyzing the contestation over urban renewal projects in Diyarbakır, the chapter shows how these conditions may be characterized not only by dispute and disillusionment but also by contradiction and creativity.
Seeing Like a Movement, Acting Like a State
Authors: Guvenç Muna
Published: October 2024

This chapter evaluates why and how the urban poor—mostly rural migrants—constituted such a vital ground for party politics. It also demonstrates how urban informality provided a fluid backdrop for the pro-Kurdish party to design and implement programs against the established (state) order. The chapter argues that social networks and nongovernmental organization (NGO) programs founded by the municipality—while alleviating poverty—created strong ties between society and the pro-Kurdish party. This made communities more accessible for popular support and political mobilization. Ultimately, the chapter illustrates spaces of mobilization where the urban poor were politicized, transforming them into conscious Kurdish urban activists.
Sculpting Violence, Activating The Street
Authors: Guvenç Muna
Published: October 2024

This chapter addresses how pro-Kurdish municipal officials appropriated public space—from the construction of public parks and memorials expressing state violence, to the diverse forms of mass demonstrations linked to these sites. It demonstrates how these appropriations of public space mobilized Kurdish society, established the collective experience of Kurdish citizenship, and provided an extra-parliamentary channel for disseminating political messages to the rest of the country. What does it mean to present a national identity, in the absence of a nation-state, through memorial landscape? What is it like to construct a narrative of a nation under the yoke of another state? These conditions required urban creativity. The pro-Kurdish party deployed alternative methods for creating a memorial landscape that belongs to the city. The chapter then delves into the intricacies of these alternative and often nuanced approaches in shaping Diyarbakır’s memorial landscape.
Denationalizing Identities
Authors: Lim Wah Guan
Published: October 2024

This book, a study of four important diasporic director-playwrights (Gao Xingjian, Stan Lai Sheng-chuan, Danny Yung Ning Tsun, and Kuo Pao Kun), shows the impact of theater on ideas of “Chineseness” across China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. At the height of the Cold War, the “Bamboo Curtain” divided the “two Chinas” across the Taiwan Strait. Meanwhile, Hong Kong prepared for its handover to the People's Republic of China and Singapore rethought Chinese education. As geopolitical tensions imposed ethno-nationalist identities across the region, these four dramatists wove together local, foreign, and Chinese elements in their art, challenging mainland China's narrative of an inevitable communist outcome. By performing cultural identities alternative to the ones sanctioned by their own states, they debunked notions of a unified Chineseness. This book highlights the key role theater and performance played in circulating people and ideas across the Chinese-speaking world, well before cross-strait relations began to thaw.
Theater of Rebellion
Authors: Lim Wah Guan
Published: October 2024

This chapter contextualizes the efforts of Danny Yung and his artistic collaborators to critically examine the sense of imminent loss by addressing the power dynamics inherent in state-sanctioned attitudes toward Hong Kong-British-Chinese identities. The chapter mentions Gao Xingjian, to provide a contrast to Yung and his artistic collaborators. Unlike Gao's Western-educated peers, Gao majored in French at the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute, where he immersed himself in world literature. The chapter recounts the post-Cultural Revolution, wherein Gao became a prominent playwright and collaborated with avant-garde director Lin Zhaohua to produce controversial yet classic plays. Facing censorship in China, Gao moved to France in 1987, where he continued writing, often in French, before translating his works into Chinese.
Humanitarian Encounter in Late Ottoman Turkey
Authors: Ümit Devrim
Published: October 2024

This chapter explores the journey of Levi Parsons and Pliny Fisk, the first missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) to the Near East. Although the American touch in Ottoman territories did not yield the immediate conversions to Protestant Christianity they hoped for, it marked the beginning of a preparatory period focused on language learning and cultural assimilation. The chapter recounts the expansion of ABCFM's mission work into the interior regions of Ottoman Turkey by the mid-nineteenth century, establishing key stations in cities like Erzurum and Antep. It emphasizes the significant growth of American missionary work from 1850 to 1876, which required subdividing operations into “European Turkey” and “Asiatic Turkey.” Between 1876 and 1909, under Sultan Abdülhamid II's authoritarian rule, the Ottoman authorities actively resisted the expanding influence of American missionaries, particularly through relief efforts such as the Christian Herald Armenian Relief Fund.
Missing Missiology
Authors: Golding David
Published: October 2024

This chapter scrutinizes the evolution of Latter-day Saint (LDS) studies within missiology, detailing how scholars worked to redefine the classification of LDS communities from “marginal” and “heterodox” to “independent” Christians. The LDS Church has historically operated its missionary efforts independently, focusing on proselytizing without formal missiological training. The chapter discusses the growing scholarly interest in LDS missionary history, with over 1,700 publications and extensive manuscript histories. The chapter highlights the unique LDS approach to missions, which lacked a formal missiology and focused more on pragmatic concerns of preaching and gathering converts. It suggests a need for scholars to address fundamental questions about LDS mission history.
Journey to the Amazonian Rainforest
Authors: Caldwell Janalee , Caldwell Janalee
Published: October 2024

This chapter examines the reproductive behavior of the Brazilian Poison Frog (Ranitomeya vanzolinii) in the Amazon Rainforest. It notes that Porto Walter was known to have a high diversity of amphibians and reptiles, including poison frogs. Unlike many species of frogs, poison frogs lay small clutches of eggs. The chapter discusses how male and female poison frogs were working together to raise their eggs and tadpoles deposited into small holes in a sapling tree or woody vine. It mentions how biparental care in frogs was a surprising discovery for the field since, and it elaborates on the different roles of male frogs and female frogs.
Trip to the Xingu River in the Amazon Forest of Brazil
Authors: Haddad Célio F. B. , Gordo Marcelo , Haddad Célio F. B. , Gordo Marcelo
Published: October 2024

This chapter details the survey fieldwork in the Brazilian Amazon Basin, primarily focused on the Xingu River, near the municipality of Altamira. It details the amazing diversity and abundance of amphibians and reptiles. Prospecting refers to any service aimed at surveying the local flora and fauna alongside the aspects of geomorphology. The camps of Consórcio Nacional de Engenheiros Consultores Sociedade Anônima primarily focused on prospecting in the Brazilian Amazon Basin. The chapter explains that the survey collected more than 50 species of anurans, some of which were new to science and later described by Janalee P. Caldwell, like the Para Toad (Rhinella castaneotica).
Following the Mole (Salamander) Trail
Authors: Walls Susan C. , Walls Susan C.
Published: October 2024

This chapter tackles the four decades of following the trail of Mole Salamander (Ambystoma talpoideum). It discusses the work shifting to the conservation of the Frosted Flatwoods Salamander (A. cingulatum) as the species is slipping into oblivion. Common species with broad distributions are typically not even on the radar of concerned conservation biologists. However, anecdotal reports of more and more common species are indicating that they are likely declining too. The chapter explains the field guides will have to be revised to reflect the shifting distribution of many species following the impacts of climate change on both expansions and contractions of species distributions.
Lost on the Puna
Authors: Simmons John E. , Simmons John E.
Published: October 2024

This chapter covers the experience of getting lost on the puna, which refers to the drier montane grasslands from central Peru south to Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile. It looks into the significance of the genus Telmatobius, which is mostly explored for its presumed medicinal properties that eventually led to being threatened and endangered. Thus, Telmatobius populations throughout the Andes are in steep decline. The chapter also mentions that the adaptations of plants and animals to the extreme environment of puna and páramo were intricate and endlessly fascinating. The true joy of fieldwork revolves around simply being in nature, interacting with animals, and sharing those experiences.
Absolute Freedom
Authors: Kasper Eric T. , Kozma Troy A.
Published: October 2024

This chapter explores the political philosophy that John Stuart Mill expressed in On Liberty, starting with an analysis of the harm principle. While Mill built caveats into his theory (some reasonable, others racist and ethnocentric), Mill generally advocated for the protection of personal freedom. Specifically, he applied his reasoning to the freedom of expression, proclaiming that we should have “absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects.” As a utilitarian, Mill dismissed the notion of natural or inalienable rights. Mill maintained that protecting the freedom of speech was a means to an end. It facilitates a well-functioning democratic process, the search for truth, and the leading of autonomous, authentic, and flourishing lives.
The Marketplace of Ideas
Authors: Kasper Eric T. , Kozma Troy A.
Published: October 2024

This chapter details how Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was criticized for applying the clear and present danger test narrowly. Holmes subsequently became a zealous advocate for John Stuart Mill's understanding of free expression, making Holmes the vehicle to introduce On Liberty's philosophy into US constitutional law. His adoption of Mill includes an understanding in Abrams v. United States (1919) that the First Amendment protects what would eventually be called a “marketplace of ideas.” This notion of letting ideas compete with each other—rather than the state deciding what speech was valuable—echoes Mill's On Liberty, especially in Holmes's defense of protecting even ideas we “loathe and believe to be fraught with death.” Holmes maintained a similar approach in his Gitlow v. New York (1925) dissent, and he was joined by Justice Louis Brandeis in his support for this view of free speech, particularly in Brandeis's concurrence in Whitney v. California (1927).
A Bedrock Principle
Authors: Kasper Eric T. , Kozma Troy A.
Published: October 2024

This chapter examines how, by the late 1980s, the Rehnquist Court began accelerating the pace of Mill-based reasoning in freedom of expression decisions. Especially after Justice Anthony Kennedy's appointment, Justice William Brennan was able to initiate another Millian resurgence that endured long after the latter justice's retirement. For example, Brennan wrote in Texas v. Johnson (1989): “If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” Cases like R.A.V. v. St. Paul (1992), Liquormart v. Rhode Island (1996), and Virginia v. Black (2003) continued this approach, allowing persons to express themselves without fear of excessive government restrictions, even if the expression was hate speech or commercial advertising. This was followed by more expressive libertarianism on the Internet, including Reno v. ACLU (1997) and Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002).
I Try Not to Think of Afghanistan
Authors: Reich Anna , Robinson Paul , Bonenberger Adrian
Published: October 2024

This book includes photographs and commentaries from Lithuanian veterans of the Soviet War in Afghanistan (1979–89), addressing the lasting realities of war and its effects on those conscripted to fight. Unflinching first-person accounts give details of training, combat, and the often difficult return to society for military conscripts within the Soviet system. The book gives insight into the experiences of not only the Lithuanian veterans from the Soviet War in Afghanistan but also veterans from all countries who face similar struggles and challenges. For three months, the book's author interacted with twenty-two veterans in their homes and meeting halls and throughout their daily routines to produce portraits that provide intimate and unvarnished portrayals of their lives and the lasting effects of forced military service in the Soviet army. Often ostracized socially because of their involvement with the Soviet army, the veterans frequently feel invisible: there are no social programs to assist them in their attempts to address post-traumatic stress disorder and assimilate into society, their cause is largely unknown, and the government responsible for their conscriptions no longer exists. The book is the culmination of eight years of investigation into the psychological toll of war and trauma. In providing a rarely seen perspective of life after combat, the book intersects with contemporary discourse, specifically the way the US experience in Afghanistan closely mirrors that of the Soviets and the Russian Federation's forced conscription of young men to fight in Ukraine.
Vytas Grigas
Authors: Reich Anna
Published: October 2024

This chapter focuses on the story of Vytas Grigas, who was deployed to Afghanistan for just over four months in 1980 and was assigned to a rocket artillery unit. Approximately half of his two years as a Soviet conscript weas spent stationed in Kaliningrad, Russia. Grigas remembers being home in Lithuania in time for the 1980 Summer Olympics, which were held in Moscow. The lack of reporting and heavy censorship from the Soviet regime kept most people in Soviet-occupied countries—at no fault of their own—completely in the dark about the war in Afghanistan. Even Vremya, the Russian TV news broadcast, only began showing reports on battles in 1986. Grigas, like many veterans, finds the Vilnius Association of Afghan War Veterans to be incredibly helpful in managing lingering combat-related stress.
Dmitrij Michailov
Authors: Reich Anna
Published: October 2024

This chapter describes the story of Dmitrij Michailov, who was conscripted into military service on May 7, 1979, before the Soviet War in Afghanistan began. Michailov was in Afghanistan from February 14, 1980, until June 20, 1981. He was the commander of a unit that specialized in radioactive chemical research, and he also worked as an artillery specialist. Speaking thirty years after his service, Michailov tries to keep the war off his mind. Seeing friends who spent time in Afghanistan and watching media coverage of the various conflicts in the Middle East trigger his memory. Thankfully, he says these triggers have grown weaker with time. Upon his return, Michailov not only received support from other veterans of the war in Afghanistan but also from his mother, a Soviet army veteran from World War II. They were able to relate to each other's experiences and reach an unlikely understanding that Michailov credits with facilitating a far smoother transition into civilian life.
Eugenijus Juodvalkis
Authors: Reich Anna
Published: October 2024

This chapter looks at the story of Eugenijus Juodvalkis, who was called to the army in October of 1979, before the Soviet War in Afghanistan officially began. Juodvalkis was conscripted for twenty-seven months, spending eighteen months in Afghanistan. He worked as a driver in Kabul and Jalalabad. At the time of his service, Juodvalkis did not question his conscription, but looking back, he views it in a different light. Healing from combat experiences, he acknowledges, has been different for every veteran. Juodvalkis then alludes to the patterns of propaganda and narrative control in the media that he observed during the Soviet occupation of Lithuania reappearing within Russia.
Virginijus Mitkus
Authors: Reich Anna
Published: October 2024

This chapter describes the story of Virginijus Mitkus, who worked as a driver on a collective farm in Aleksandrija, Lithuania, prior to his conscription to the Soviet army in the spring of 1986. He was trained in a professional technical school to operate harvesters, tractors, and other agricultural machinery; these skills would prove essential in Mitkus's military service. He recalls that despite his education, there was nothing he could have done to avoid conscription. Initially, Mitkus and his fellow conscripts flew to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, before taking the train southwest to Termez, where he first learned that he was going to Afghanistan. Ultimately, his assignment in Afghanistan was to transport gasoline. Although Mitkus's perspective on his combat experience and military service is one rooted in fate, he does not hesitate to acknowledge the impact it has had on his life. He speculates that his views are shared by other veterans of the Soviet War in Afghanistan.
Gytis Tamulevičius
Authors: Reich Anna
Published: October 2024

This chapter presents the story of Gytis Tamulevičius, who had just completed his first year of university when he was called to the army in 1984. He was hastily sent to Afghanistan for twenty-two months, returning to Lithuania in 1986. While in Afghanistan, Tamulevičius was part of a unit that specialized in explosive ordnance disposal; the majority of his time was spent disarming roadside mines. About a decade after his time in the army, Tamulevičius was in Hamburg, Germany, when he had the opportunity to meet Afghan citizens who had also fought in the Soviet War in Afghanistan, including the former mayor of Kabul. An unlikely friendship developed, and Tamulevičius has maintained communication with them. At the time of his interview, he owned a successful indoor ski training club in Vilnius. Tamulevičius believes that his outlook on life eased his transition from soldier to civilian to businessman.
Alfredas Kozlovskij
Authors: Reich Anna
Published: October 2024

This chapter discusses the story of Alfredas Kozlovskij, who was part of the second unit of Soviet soldiers to enter Afghanistan. Kozlovskij was the commander of a group that was tasked with securing the main road running north and south in Afghanistan. He and his unit trained in Latvia for six months before heading to Turkmenistan. After the war, Kozlovskij took advantage of what little support was offered to veterans. He explains that “veterans in the Soviet Union had no assistance and certainly no psychological help. There were the standard sanitariums, which served as rehabilitation centers.” Kozlovskij went twice to the clinic but “everything changed when Lithuania gained its independence—then we were completely forgotten.” It frustrates him to watch history repeat itself in some ways with the US War in Afghanistan.
Sergej Ivanov
Authors: Reich Anna
Published: October 2024

This chapter looks at the story of Sergej Ivanov, who was born in Siberia, but his family was relocated to Vilnius shortly after his birth because of his father's position as a military officer. Ivanov completed his elementary and secondary studies at the Russian school in Vilnius and then attended an elite military school in Moscow from 1976 to 1980 for officer training. After graduation, he was sent to Tajikistan to work in border security, where he led a unit of thirty soldiers. His unit then received its first assignment to go to Afghanistan. After Afghanistan, Ivanov continued to serve in the Soviet army and was stationed at the border of the Soviet Union and China until 1986. By 2015, he had reconnected with many of the soldiers from his unit in Afghanistan. Ivanov had a different postwar experience than many veterans from the Soviet War in Afghanistan. He cites his extensive training as the reason why he did not struggle with combat-related stress, but sympathizes with the younger soldiers who did not have the luxury of such training.
Viktor Vladimirov
Authors: Reich Anna
Published: October 2024

This chapter discusses the story of Viktor Vladimirov, who was conscripted to the Soviet army on March 31, 1982. He spent two years in Afghanistan without so much as two weeks of leave. One incident from Vladimirov's time in Afghanistan stands out in his mind more than all of the others. He was ordered to shoot at a local family's home located at the base of a mountain. When he saw that there were children, Vladimirov lied to his commander and said that he could not complete the assignment because it was physically impossible to hit the target. Like many others, he struggled when he returned from the war. Vladimirov emphasizes the importance of proper rehabilitation when a person returns home after a deployment.
Afterword
Authors: Bonenberger Adrian
Published: October 2024

This afterword offers a comparison between the American Vietnam War veterans and the Soviet veterans of Afghanistan. The United States survived Vietnam, and the people who fought in that war earned a kind of redemption for the veterans who followed. In the USSR, it was the opposite—after Afghanistan, the constituent countries of Russia's imperial project decided that they were better off on their own. After 1991, the Ukrainian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Belarusian soldiers who had fought the Afghan mujahideen as part of the Soviet Union no longer had a military tradition to call their own. They became veterans of a military that no longer existed. The afterword recognizes that the Lithuanians who fought in the Soviet War in Afghanistan have their own story—as individuals who served in combat—their story as Lithuanians serving in a Soviet army dominated by Russians, and their story as a minority population viewed with suspicion as fascist collaborators within the communist USSR.
Law and Deception
Authors: Helstosky Carol
Published: October 2024

This chapter addresses the complaints from visitors to Italy regarding the neglect of art, antiquities, and monuments, overlooking Italy's long history of protective measures like the Pacca Edict of 1820. Despite efforts by the Italian government post-1861 to catalog and protect artistic treasures, the regulation of the art market generated considerable controversy both inside and outside Italy. The chapter points out that the blurred distinction between living and dead artists complicated art laws and fostered stereotypes of Italian deceit. The chapter discusses how the Italian government's struggle to enforce art laws clashed with the expanding art market's need for mobility, leading to illegal art trafficking and public outcry about the loss of Italy's patrimony. It explores how Italy's legal framework, social scientific inquiries into deception, and the antiquarian industry's practices reflected and influenced the nation's cultural and economic landscape in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Introduction
Authors: Akif′ëv Ivan Nikolaevich , Gentes Andrew A.
Published: October 2024

This chapter introduces the author, a physician who travelled across Europe, the Atlantic, and the United States and then around the North Pacific. The author offers a glimpse into the dawning of the tumultuous twentieth century, particularly a peripheral of Russia. Worldwide anxiety characterized the period when the author penned his diary, and nationalism, imperialism, and racialism factored into that anxiety. The author begins his diary with an account of their train crossing the frontier when he was twenty-seven years old and keen for adventure. The chapter also explains that the author's diary demonstrates a worldview shaped by nationalist, imperialist, and racialist discourses.
Sakhalin
Authors: Akif′ëv Ivan Nikolaevich , Gentes Andrew A.
Published: October 2024

This chapter notes the author's impressions of the intimacies of Sakhalin life. It explains that robbery and theft existed to a high degree, and murder seemed to be too frequent. Inspecting the mines meant being intimate with the conditions of the prisoners with penal labor which ruined a person as people got brutalized and numbed. The chapter also notes that the author met Korsakovsk Post's intelligentsia, whom he had poor impressions of due to the conflicting opinions about the penal laborers. The author's wished to be away from the terrible island where thousands of living people were decomposing, physically and morally.
Notes on the Book’s Format, and Tips for Exploring Milwaukee County’s Geology
Authors: Wiggers Raymond
Published: October 2024

This chapter offers interconnected facts and ideas from geology, architecture, civil engineering, and history in an accessible manner. Emphasizing personal observations and experiences, the chapter humanizes complex subjects to engage with immense geologic time scales. It also honors the tradition of science writers like Milwaukee's Increase Lapham, who communicated their knowledge in an engaging and educational way. The chapter provides a geologic context of Milwaukee County, covering the origins and classification of building materials such as stone, brick, and terra-cotta, and offering practical tips for exploring architectural geology without the need for heavy equipment or specimen collection. By blending scientific rigor with personal enthusiasm, it aims to inspire a deeper appreciation of Milwaukee's unique geologic and architectural heritage.