bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Understanding fully-connected and convolution allayers in unsupervised learning using face images
Authors: Buzuti Lucas Fontes , Thomaz Carlos Eduardo
Published: September 2019

The goal of this paper is to implement and compare two unsupervised models of deep learning: Autoencoder and Convolutional Autoencoder. These neural network models have been trained to learn regularities in well-framed face images with different facial expressions. The Autoencoder's basic topology is addressed here, composed of encoding and decoding multilayers. This paper approaches these automatic codings using multivariate statistics to visually understand the bottleneck differences between the fully-connected and convolutional layers and the corresponding importance of the dropout strategy when applied in a model.
Person Authentication Based on the Difference of Deep Features Extracted from the Ocular and Face Regions
Authors: Vizoni Marcelo Vilela , Marana Aparecido Nilceu
Published: September 2019

This paper presents a new method for person authentication that relies on the fusion of two biometric authentication methods based, respectively, on ocular deep features and facial deep features. In our work, the deep features are extracted from the regions of interest by using a very deep CNN (Convolutional Neural Network). Another interesting aspect of our work is that, instead of using directly the deep features as input for the authentication methods, we use the difference between the probe and gallery deep features. So, our method adopts a pairwise strategy. Support Vector Machine classiﬁers are trained separately for each approach. The fusion of the ocular and the facial based methods are carried out in the score level. The proposed method was assessed with a facial database taken under uncontrolled environment and reached good results. Besides, the fusion strategy proposed in this work showed better results than the results obtained by each individual method.
The Dialectics of Trust and Control: About Different Concepts in Human Resource Management and Mandatory Co-determination
Authors: Müller-Jentsch Walther
Published: September 2019

The paper elaborates the differences of two functional equivalent institutions which give labour a voice in production processes. HRM is primarily understood as a sophisticated method of personnel management which usually includes schemes of direct participation by employees, particularly through teamwork. At first sight HRM and mandatory participation seem functionally equivalent. Both give employees a voice in firms’ decision making - the works council a collective voice, HRM an individual voice. Both are devices for conflict resolution and for labour-management cooperation. Works councils are more focussed on conflict resolution, while HRM focuses more on cooperation. Both devices base on trust relations with the employees. The trust provided by HRM depends on a self-binding strategy by management whereas works councils are democratic institutions which function as trust agencies controlled by the vote of their electorate.
Shaping or Shaking Trust in Corporate Responsibility Strategies: The Role of Financialization PracticesDate submitted: September 30, 2017Revised version accepted after double blind review: October 23, 2018
Authors: Beyer Jürgen , Dabrowski Simon , Lottermoser Florian , Senge Konstanze
Published: September 2019

Managerial trust in a corporate responsibility strategy can be a precondition for the progressive implementation of social and ecological activities. Our findings show that the financialization of corporate responsibility activities can help overcome institutional incomplementarity between the logic of social responsibility and the dominant financial logic to build and strengthen managerial trust and facilitate implementation. This trust, however, is precarious and requires constant management. Moreover, financialization practices lead to selective implementation of corporate responsibility activities, which may lead to mistrust amongst external stakeholders. Thus, the financialization of corporate responsibility is highly ambivalent by shaping trust amongst internal stakeholders, but shaking trust amongst external stakeholders. Findings are based on quantitative and qualitative data derived from 25 interviews with experts employed by Germany’s largest publicly traded companies in 2016 and 2017, as well as an online survey of managers employed by 88 German companies listed on the DAX/MDAX/TecDAX stock indices in 2016.
Outbreak of the Crisis
Authors: Huei Pang Yang
Published: September 2019

On 3 September 1954, China launched a massive artillery bombardment on the islands of Quemoy and Matsu, triggering the first crisis. This attack prompted the US to sign the Mutual Defense Treaty with Taiwan on 2 December 1954. China also courted neutralist countries in Asia in the immediate aftermath of the crisis. This chapter focuses on the Geneva reverberations especially on developments in July and August 1954, which led to the eruption of the First Taiwan Strait Crisis. How China, the US and Taiwan acted following the outbreak of this crisis will be the next point of scrutiny.
Police and the ‘Hooks’
Authors: Cheng Vincent Shing
Published: September 2019

This chapter examines former prisoners’ experiences of being arrested and their views on the police officers who arrest them. With the example of the use of informants, which the former prisoners called ‘hooking’, it argues that the police officers’ concern for intelligence collection and meeting arrest quotas had overridden the concern for ‘saving the drug addicts’. The former drug detainees were exposed to the media presentation of ‘model police officers’ on the front stage and the actual practices of ‘hooking’ on the backstage simultaneously. It argues that this had contributed to their feelings of injustice and to a structural system of hypocrisy formed by the material circumstances of the prison as well as outside bureaucratic performance criteria like the arrest quota and different types of performance measurements linked to the daily police operation.
Initiation Ceremony in Drug Detention
Authors: Cheng Vincent Shing
Published: September 2019

This chapter further examines former prisoners’ experiences in the early phase of their imprisonment. With the example of the prison culture of ‘initiation ceremonies’, it argues that prison officers’ concern of maintaining control and order in the prison goes beyond producing the form of structural hypocrisy discussed in the previous chapter and actually forces former prisoners to act in hypocritical ways themselves. What should have been a process of learning and rehabilitation through education turns instead into a veritable culture of hypocrisy.
Prison Authority and the ‘Inmate Elites’
Authors: Cheng Vincent Shing
Published: September 2019

This chapter examines former drug detainees’ experiences of everyday life in the prisons. I look specifically at the power relationship between the detention officers and the powerful inmates (whom I referred to as the ‘inmate elites’) in laojiao/qiangge. On the basis of their power relations, this chapter argues that the prison officers’ concerns for maintaining control and the pressure on making profit had far superseded the concerns for drug rehabilitation. This further added to the former prisoners’ feelings of unfairness and injustice and more deeply entrenched the systematic hypocrisy.
Conclusion
Authors: Cheng Vincent Shing
Published: September 2019

It concludes that besides the failure of rehabilitation, it’s also the discrepancy of party propaganda and the practical reality.
Introduction
Authors: Wielander Gerda
Published: September 2019

This chapter provides an overview of the most important works in happiness studies today as well as an analysis of the available happiness data on China since 1990, charting the main development and their underlying social and economic causes. It links the rise of reported happiness since 2005 in China to the government’s stepped up ideological efforts, notably through the Chinese Dream campaign and its associated happiness education campaign. This chapter also provides an analysis of the main themes emerging in the book, which include propaganda and political discourse, suzhi, and the appearance of Ah Q as important cultural archetype. Finally, the Introduction also provides a short summary of each chapter, and in its conclusion argues that despite the multiplicity of influences which shape the various discourses, we can find broadly shared agreement about values and aspirations in relation to happiness across a wide spectrum of society.
Tibet and Happiness in Chinese Media Discourses
Authors: Lama Jigme Yeshe
Published: September 2019

This chapter analyses happiness discourses in Tibet. It juxtaposes the official discourse of Tibet as a happy place resulting from economic development and favourable social policy with the “hidden transcript” based on the importance of Tibetan culture, which also manifests itself in the “infrapolitics” of the subordinated and desperate Tibetan population. The chapter draws on close analysis of media reports on happiness in Tibet and concludes that linking economic prosperity to happiness is a legitimizing tool by the Chinese government and a discourse mostly directed at China’s Han population, who, from a distance, do indeed perceive Tibet as a “happy” place. For Tibetans happiness constitutes more than prosperity and includes a revival of Tibetan spiritual culture, into which much of the newly accumulated prosperity is invested.
“As Long as My Daughter Is Happy”
Authors: Engebretsen Elisabeth Lund
Published: September 2019

This chapter discusses motivational advocacy work on the part of mainland Chinese parents who are or have been, struggling to come to terms with their now-adult child being lesbian or gay. Taking the recent emergence of the organization PFLAG (Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians and Gays) organization in China in 2008, and the growing popularity for their outreach work in Chinese media as a starting point, I trace the striking appearance of stories of parental support, love and understanding – or ‘love advocacy’ work. Through a selective reading of two of Popo Fan’s recent documentary films on PFLAG-China’s parental advocacy work, I show the complex emotional framings of love, grief, gender and family norms through variegated articulations of ‘happiness’, as they relate to broader socio-political narratives of national modernity and progress. The discussion, whilst most directly concerned with the modern project of happiness, also points to a broader and more complex nexus of individually felt sensibilities and normative values, whereby gendered identities, sexual orientations and roles within and beyond family relations, are being challenged.
“Happy Housewives”
Authors: Yang Jie
Published: September 2019

This chapter analyzes representations of “happy housewives” in popular psychological self-help media in order to examine the relationship between gender, psychology and privatization in China. Through analysis of media and ethnographic data, I demonstrate that while both gender and psychology are represented as sites of regulation and value extraction, the heart of the housewife is the true space of commodification, where emotions, value, and virtue are all generated. This felt space of possibility and potentiality, constructed by media in concert with state interests, intensifies women’s attachment to commodities and to the world, and enhances consumption and entrepreneurship. Happiness promotion, of which the figure of the happy housewife is a key part, not only objectifies women and renders invisible their complex subjectivities, but downplays the intensified gendered exploitation and class stratification since the mid-1990s when privatization began. In this context, I argue that unhappiness or anger can constitute a repoliticizing process that reinvigorates discussions of class as both an analytical and political category in China.
Cultivating Capacity for Happiness as a Confucian Project in Contemporary China
Authors: Zhang Yanhua
Published: September 2019

Searching for happiness (xingfu) in contemporary China is noticeably mediated, in discourse and practice, by a revival of Confucian learning, especially Confucian self-cultivation. Drawing on personal observations, textual publications, and media documentation, this chapter illustrates how the Confucian notion of happiness has been formulated to articulate the diverse experience and desires among different social strata in post-reform China. The author argues that happiness engagement in contemporary China has acquired a distinctive Confucian moral-affect of self-cultivation, and in the meantime, Confucianism as an actively practiced tradition has been regenerated, transformed, and made closely relevant to the contemporary living for Chinese people.
Introduction: The Other Side of Eunuch History
Authors: Dale Melissa S.
Published: September 2019

Throughout history, eunuchs have been defined by their lack of body parts. Genitally mutilating one group to keep another pure,1 rulers have relied on eunuchs as “keepers of the harem,” servants who ensured the sexual purity of the palace women, and the legitimacy of the imperial lineage. Societies throughout the world have also castrated or emasculated young boys and men for religious, political, or cultural purposes. While oftentimes labeled erroneously as an exoticism unique to imperial China, eunuchs played roles in the histories of the Roman and Ottoman Empires, served in the Korean imperial court, and continue to exist in contemporary Indian society. In China, the practice of utilizing eunuchs as imperial servants dates back thousands of years to ancient dynasties such as the Shang (1766–1122 BCE)...
Entering the Emperor’s Realm
Authors: Dale Melissa S.
Published: September 2019

Even though emasculation was a job prerequisite, it did not ensure that a eunuch would be hired as a palace eunuch. Emasculates would need to undergo training prior to applying for service in the palace. Designed to be the ideal servants for the emperor and his court, eunuch subservience and proper conduct were expected. While eunuchs were not slaves, they were imperial servants living in an environment defined by strict rules of deportment and protocol. Within the palace, the majority of eunuchs occupied positions at the bottom of the social hierarchy within the palace. Physical disfigurement now dictated every aspect of the eunuch’s life from entry into the eunuch system, to placement in the eunuch hierarchy, to apprenticeship, to employment opportunities.
The Parallel World of the Eunuch
Authors: Dale Melissa S.
Published: September 2019

Palace eunuchs, seeking agency in their restricted lives, tested the boundaries of subservience to the emperor and the imperial eunuch system. Behind the palace walls, eunuchs operated within two parallel realms, one revolving around the emperor and his imperial court and another in which they challenged the restrictions placed on them by the imperial eunuch system. This chapter focuses on the world of the eunuch, where eunuchs recreated the social bonds that emasculation was intended to deny them. An examination of legal cases and directives on eunuch conduct provides insight into this second, more hidden, realm, one in which opium dens and gambling flourished, eunuchs became drunk and got into fights with one another, and forbidden bonds of intimacy defeated one of the main purposes of emasculation.
Running away from the Palace
Authors: Dale Melissa S.
Published: September 2019

The abundance of cases in the historical record of palace eunuchs running away, often repeatedly, reflects poorly on the imperial court’s treatment of its eunuchs and effectiveness at times in controlling its eunuch population. The repeated flight of eunuchs suggests that, for some, the possibility of punishment was preferable to continued service and waiting for an authorized exit from the system due to old age or sickness. Cases of runaway eunuchs reveal: (1) the tensions that characterized labor relations between the imperial household and its eunuch workforce and (2) that eunuch status does not fit neatly into the binary of free or unfree, it is something more complicated that lies on the continuum in between.
Eunuch Suicide
Authors: Dale Melissa S.
Published: September 2019

Suicide provided eunuchs with one of the few ways in which they could determine when they would permanently exit the system. Far from a solitary act, a eunuch’s suicide posed a risk to the imperial court, his family members, and his fellow eunuchs. This examination of how the Qing dealt with eunuch suicides provides insight into palace–eunuch labor relations, the complexities of unfree status, and further evidence of eunuchs pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior as they attempted to express a degree of agency and self-determination in their lives. Qing suicide regulations reveal that eunuchs did not have the right to leave their positions whenever they chose, especially when it involved the possibility of leaving the palace for good through suicide.
Authorized Exits from the System
Authors: Dale Melissa S.
Published: September 2019

This chapter examines how the Qing viewed its responsibility towards palace eunuchs when they were either too sick or too old to serve. The Qing envisioned that their responsibility for the livelihood of a palace eunuch would end as soon as he was no longer able to perform his duties. Upon discharge from the system, the government would restore the eunuch’s commoner status and attempt to sever all ties and relinquish all responsibility for its former servants. Qing regulations stipulated that retired eunuchs were to return to their native places and support themselves. However, eunuch reintegration into society ran into obstacles upon implementation.
Conclusion
Authors: Dale Melissa S.
Published: September 2019

A topic of discussion in the media, eunuchs became part of the popular discourse as society thought of ways for them to move forward. For the majority of late Qing eunuchs, reintegration into society proved difficult.
Between Idealism and Pragmatism
Authors: Chang Jing Jing
Published: September 2019

Chapter 2 traces the development of Hong Kong’s official film culture during the 1950s and 1960s within the contexts of the documentary film movement, the imperial legacy of the British Colonial Film Unit, and the colonial rhetoric of film literacy. In particular, it uses such Hong Kong Film Unit-produced short features as Report to the Gods (Dir. Brian Salt, 1967), starring local opera talent Leung Sing-por, as archival sources to argue that the colonial regime’s relationship with Hong Kong’s population was not a static vertical imposition of the “culture of depoliticization,” but one that was shifting and characterized by manipulation, misunderstanding, and negotiation amid bipolarized Cold War tension. I argue here that British Hong Kong’s involvement in filmmaking activities expose the top-down imposition of a colonial regime as well as the transformative nature of colonial rule during the Cold War period of the 1950s through 1960s. Official film culture should not be seen merely as tools of colonial governance or a means of indoctrinating subject audiences, but rather was part of an overall “strategy for survival” as well as an integral component in the process of screening the local Hong Kong “colonial” citizenry during the Cold War.
Familial Address and the Aesthetics of Lunli
Authors: Chang Jing Jing
Published: September 2019

Chapter 4 examines the didactic message promoted by Hong Kong’s left-leaning Cantonese filmmakers (including the Union, Xinlian, Overseas Chinese and Hualian) through their lunlipian (Family melodrama or social ethics films). In particular, I argue that the pedagogical work of lunlipian was not merely through narratives of a reconfigured Confucian family, but also through the audience-hailing effect of marketing, which constructed cinemagoers as members of a collective family in Hong Kong’s postwar community. The critical intervention of this chapter is to unpack the usage and function of lunlipian from contextual, critical, and textual perspectives, and to theorize the social function of lunlipian as a didactic familial address that contributed to the postwar process of screening community. In theorizing the lunli mode of storytelling, this chapter suggests a new periodization of Cantonese golden age cinema that presents an alternative narrative, from one of aesthetic rupture and commercial decline, to one of moral and didactic continuity and industrial adaptation. Screening community during the 1960s therefore is constituted as a negotiated site of spectatorship as well as a strategy of audience address.
The Nanyang Ethos and Engendering the Chinese Overseas Experience
Authors: Chang Jing Jing
Published: September 2019

Chapter 5 argues that Chinese overseas is a privileged narrative focus providing a vantage point from which to explore the importance of Southeast Asia or Nanyang as ethos and imaginary in 1950s and 1960s Hong Kong films. As a border-crossing process and imaginary, Nanyang not only contributed to the survival of Hong Kong’s film industry between the 1950s and 1960s, but it also fuelled the transformation and construction of the colony as a nodal site amid 1960s industrialization. In order to explore Nanyang’s role in Hong Kong’s narrative path toward industrial modernity, this chapter first examines the shifting colonial, statist and cinematic conceptions of Cold War citizenship, allegiance, nationality, and gendered labor. Second, this chapter discusses two politically-driven filmic projections of the Nanyang ethos, arguing that both films continue to conceal contentious ideological and bipolarized conceptions of Chinese national subjectivity. The chapter ends with an analysis on The Story between Hong Kong and Macau (Yishui ge tianya, dir. Cho Kei, 1966), which moves beyond a paternalistic studio-centered approach to reveal how narratives about the travelling Chinese woman and the Nanyang continue to negotiate with narratives of gendered work and gendered economy in the process of screening Hong Kong’s modern industrial community.
Coda
Authors: Chang Jing Jing
Published: September 2019

The coda summarizes the book’s overarching narrative and goals, and followed by a discussion of the lasting impact of Those 72 Tenants (Qishier jia fangke, dir. Wang Weiyi, 1963) and its remake, The House of 72 Tenants (Qishier jia fangke, dir. Chor Yuen, 1973), on developments in Hong Kong cinema since the 1970s as they intersect with political and social change originating during the mid-1960s disturbances. A comparative analysis of these two films demonstrates the porous boundaries across media formats as well as across social and political realms of experiences. The coda concludes with a discussion of Kung Fu Hustle (Kungfu, dir. Stephen Chow, 2004). Kung Fu Hustle, which was financed and distributed by Columbia Pictures International, can be considered as global and international. However, it is also local in its nostalgic expressions. As the book’s final case study, the film demonstrates the Hong Kong cinema’s persistence of the portrayal of a screened community and local identity. In the final analysis, the unique identity of Hong Kong cinema rests in an ongoing quest to construct and screen its distinctive local community.
The American “Occupation”
Authors: Fuller Robert L.
Published: September 2019

French public opinion about the American presence waxed and waned, sometimes driven by events. Much of the French disquiet proved to be fleeting and overestimated; at other times, it was the product of unrealistic expectations. Treating France as a second-rate power by leaving de Gaulle out of the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences offended many French. Suspicions about the intentions of French Communists united many French—including de Gaulle—with the Americans. Cultural differences between the two nations aggravated unavoidable clashes of interests. Still, the Americans’ maladroit handling of sensitive situations sometimes unnecessarily irritated their French hosts.
Change on the Horizon
Authors: Oakley David P.
Published: September 2019

By taking the first steps to weaken the powerful military services and establishing a unified DoD, the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 increased the DoD’s influence in US foreign policy while also creating policy and structure that enabled and required future DoD/CIA collaboration. The failures in the field that motivated defense reform were the same failures that initiated discussions on intelligence support to military operations. Reviews of Operation Urgent Fury and the Beirut barracks bombing criticized the lack of intelligence support to commanders. In this regard, the defense reform enacted by Congress through Goldwater-Nichols was the initial phase of broader national security reforms. Although intelligence reform was initially not embraced to the same degree as defense reform, policy makers, motivated by perceived “intelligence failures,” looked to restructure intelligence for a post–Cold War environment.
A New Administration
Authors: Oakley David P.
Published: September 2019

Many former Republican hands returned to positions of influence with the election of George W. Bush. These individuals had been involved in previous Intelligence Community reform efforts and returned to power with the intent of furthering these efforts. Believing the Clinton administration had reduced intelligence funding too far, the Bush team looked for ways to increase spending and rebuild the Intelligence Community. Within months of taking office, the administration initiated reviews to identify where to rebuild. The necessities of war would soon influence these reviews and the direction of the DoD/CIA relationship.
The Soldier Image and State-Building in Modern China, 1924-1945
Authors: Xu Yan
Published: September 2019

Yan Xu’s book The Soldier Image and State-Building in Modern China, 1924–1945 focuses on the connection between soldiers, urban publics, and party governments of wartime China in an effort to provide a nuanced analysis of the complicated state-society relations. Xu structured this work in a way that united the chapters through the multiple soldier figures in China and the imagery cast upon them due to wars. Xu scrutinizes how political, social, and literary perspectives influenced the rhetoric and ideal of the soldier figure. Xu’s book works chronologically from the initial start-up of the prestigious Whampoa Military Academy in the 1920s, to the issue and revision of compulsory conscription laws in the 1930s, to the urban intellectuals and professionals serving and writing about the soldiers during the Second Sino-Japanese War, to the students conscripted into the army during the later years of the war. Xu integrates the party struggles into the analysis of wartime China by devoting the last chapter to the creation of the soldier image by the Chinese Communists. Xu highlights how crucial the construction of the discourse on the soldier image was to the state-building processes for both Chinese Nationalists and Communists. The Soldier Image and State-Building in Modern China, 1924–1945, fosters insight into the 1920s-40s of modern China that uncovers how war operates as a cultural event rather than simply one utilized for political strategy.
Introduction
Authors: Xu Yan
Published: September 2019

The introduction first provides a historical background for the book during the period from the 1924 establishment of the Whampoa Military Academy to the 1945 end of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Xu goes on to introduce the major themes that the book aims to engage with, namely state-building and state-society relations in modern China, war and soldiers in Chinese military history and literature, as well as social emotion and mass mobilization in the Chinese Communist Revolution. Xu argues in the introduction that her book focuses on both social and cultural impacts of war in order to treat war as a cultural event for the people it influences rather than simply an analysis of politics and strategy. Xu ends this section by introducing the chapter structure and primary sources of the book.
The Army-People Bond in Mass Culture in Wartime Yan’an
Authors: Xu Yan
Published: September 2019

The sixth chapter outlines another political force that influenced modern China: the Chinese Communists during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Xu claims that the CCP constructed the soldier figure here within the parameters of an emotional bond between the army and the people, believing it to be essential for the state-building agenda that was contingent on winning support from peasants in the area and social integration in the revolutionary base. Xu, furthermore, splits the chapter up by examining first the CCP’s policies in Yan’an for integration and winning support from peasants, then later the army-peasant bond during the yangge movement.
West Point
Authors: Trauschweizer Ingo
Published: September 2019

In the opening chapter I introduce Maxwell Taylor as superintendent of the US Military Academy (1945-1949), where he placed greater emphasis on the humanities for a more balanced liberal education of army officers. This was to prepare them for leadership of a mass army made up of a mix of volunteers and draftees, which depended on one’s ability to communicate clearly and compellingly. At West Point, Taylor also began to formulate lessons of World War II, pondered the changing nature of strategy, which now had to encompass the full mobilization potential of the nation, and considered the effects of atomic weapons. Curiously, he concluded that limited war remained both possible and likely.
Cold War Frontiers
Authors: Trauschweizer Ingo
Published: September 2019

In this chapter I address Taylor’s command experiences in Germany and Berlin (1949-1951), as army administrator at the Pentagon, and in Korea (February 1953- mid-1955). Taylor deftly handled Cold War crises, helped build alliance relationships, linked politics, economics, diplomacy, and military affairs, and worked at the intersection of operational command and strategic planning. He and the army also coped with strategy shifts as the Truman administration endorsed a buildup of conventional and nuclear forces and President Eisenhower returned to nuclear deterrence and emphasis on the air force. In 1955, Taylor drafted a plan for a strategy of flexible response that combined nuclear and conventional armaments. Eisenhower nevertheless appointed Taylor chief of staff of the army because he trusted in his loyalty.
Architect of the Vietnam War
Authors: Trauschweizer Ingo
Published: September 2019

In this chapter I explore Taylor’s role in the American escalation in Vietnam in 1964-1965, when he served as ambassador in Saigon. Lyndon Johnson put Taylor in charge of all American assets and agencies in Vietnam, including the military effort. Taylor feared the spread of Communism and held that Vietnam was the place to stop the spread of “wars of national liberation.” Taylor was a vocal advocate for air strikes against North Vietnam, yet he opposed deployment of large numbers of US ground forces and wanted to leave the fighting to the South Vietnamese army. By the end of his tenure, however, the United States was committed to an air and land war in Vietnam and Taylor would become one of the war’s most ardent defenders.
Advance to Maturity, 1919–1935
Authors: Johnson Wray R. , Johnson Wray R.
Published: September 2019

This chapter serves as a bridge between the occupation of Haiti and the intervention in Nicaragua. During this period, the evolution of Marine Corps aviation was highlighted by organizational change, technological advancements, public relations ventures, professional development of the aviation cadre, and tactical innovations, leading to the emergence of a modern air force by the time the marines intervened in Nicaragua in 1927. The chapter examines the interventions in the Dominican Republic and northern China and explores the Marine Corps’ acquisition of modern aircraft during this period.
Conclusion
Authors: Johnson Wray R.
Published: September 2019

The conclusion brings the narrative to an end by discussing why the experience of the US Marine Corps in the small wars era matters and how that experience can be applied to the employment of aviation (more broadly, air power) in small wars today and in the future. The conclusion revisits the concept of small wars and then examines the lessons learned by the marines from 1915 to 1934.
The Professional
Authors: LoBrutto Vincent
Published: September 2019

After Ridley Scott graduates from the Royal College of Art, he is awarded a year-long traveling scholarship from Schweppes, the beverage company, and in New York works with legendary documentary filmmakers D.A. Pennebaker and Richard Leacock. He works in the design department at the BBC and moonlights overnight on commercials. In 1964 he marries his first wife, Felicity Heywood, with whom he has two sons, Jake and Luke. The marriage ended in divorce in 1975. Tony Scott attends the Royal College of Art and makes a short film, One of the Missing, based on a short story by Ambrose Bierce. Ridley Scott directs a short version of Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory. It was never aired on the BBC because of legal reasons. Scott directs television programs for the BBC and learns the proper way to direct actors. In 1965 Scott directed many commercials in New York City and gains a deep understanding of cinematography. Scott opens Ridley Scott Associates (RSA).
Mythology
Authors: LoBrutto Vincent
Published: September 2019

In the Orwellian year of 1984, during Super Bowl XVIII, a commercial for Apple’s Mackintosh computer ran and became one of the most eye-catching and provocative sixty-second spots ever made. It was never shown again on television. As directed by Ridley Scott, the commercial portrays the grim world of the future dominated by Big Brother until a beautiful, athletic woman liberates everyone. For his next feature film Scott embraced the fantasy genre with Legend, a good versus evil tale set it a mythical land. Disaster hit the production when the entire elaborate set burned down. Miraculously, no one was injured, and the fairy tale environment was quickly rebuilt. The original version of Legend did poorly in front of test audiences and Scott cut it down radically, which hurt the film even more at the box office. In 1986 Ridley Scott Associates was expanded with the addition of a New York office, with more to come in the future.
Male Feminist
Authors: LoBrutto Vincent
Published: September 2019

Thelma & Louise is a landmark feminist film that became an iconic symbol of women who take control of their own lives. The picture, Callie Khouri’s first screenplay, won an Academy Award. The two lead characters are off on an adventure when a rapist changes their lives. For most of the movie they are wanted for murder and chased by the police. The in-depth performances by Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis show rare insight into the female perspective. This motion picture was shot on location and has a controversial ending that still fascinates and puzzles viewers. Scott, British born, visually captures the roads and vistas of America in a way that supports this unusual and powerful story.
Con Job
Authors: LoBrutto Vincent
Published: September 2019

Matchstick Men concerns a con man, Roy Waller, played by Nicolas Cage, and his partner Frank Mercer, portrayed by Sam Rockwell, who rip people off with a lottery scam. Roy is at the top of his criminal trade but he is burdened with a seemingly endless series of psychological tics. Frank convinces Roy to engage in a “Big Con,” which turns out to be an elaborate scam against his partner, putting him out of business. The film, a dark comedy, brings the audience into Roy’s world of mental distress. Ridley Scott turned sixty-five and was knighted by the queen of England for “his service to the British Film Industry,” an honor he shares with David Lean and Alfred Hitchcock. The director now had the title Sir Ridley Scott.
Revisionist Robin
Authors: LoBrutto Vincent
Published: September 2019

Although there have been many films featuring the legendary Robin Hood, Ridley Scott and the man who would play Robin in the director’s unique take on the story, Russell Crowe, had a dim view of the past competition, even the Hollywood classic featuring Errol Flynn: The Adventures of Robin Hood, released in 1938. Scott’s take on Robin Hood is more political. The movie also centers in on how the archer met and fell in love with Marion Loxley. At this time, Scott was also having his biggest success ever on television with the series The Good Wife, a legal drama starring Julianna Margulies. The success The Good Wife has had is a testament to good writing, good acting, and producers―including Ridley Scott and Tony Scott―who know a good thing when they see it and understand how to nourish it for a long run.
Prequel?
Authors: LoBrutto Vincent
Published: September 2019

After many years had gone by since he directed Alien, and sequels had been released by other film directors, Ridley Scott decided he would finally revisit the original movie in the franchise. Prometheus is the only sequel to Alien not to use that word in the title. The film is a departure from the series in that it is less a horror film and more a philosophical venture into the beginnings of humankind and the meaning of life. Prometheus was a huge box office success despite the fact that the narrative is very convoluted and not all the many questions the film poses are answered. Nonetheless, the realistic and believable production qualities of Prometheus as well as the fine ensemble cast were ingredients for success.
Red
Authors: LoBrutto Vincent
Published: September 2019

Ridley Scott was not the first director slated for The Martian, but when the star Matt Damon requested him Scott once again took on the science fiction genre. The story is a take on the classic Robinson Crusoe tale―this time an astronaut is accidently left alone on Mars. When he learns it will be a long time before he is rescued, he farms potatoes to stay alive. The story goes back and forth from the astronaut’s self-survival actions to NASA on earth dealing with space politics and the crew’s fight to get its comrade home. The Martian presents the most realistic view to date of Mars as well as the technology and inner workings of NASA headquarters. The film was an enormous success at the box office and with critics.
Introduction
Authors: Fry Joseph A.
Published: September 2019

The North’s victory in the American Civil War had profound domestic and international significance. By prevailing in this epic conflict, the United States preserved both the nation’s territorial integrity and its experiment in republicanism and democracy. Sustaining territorial integrity and republicanism enabled the nation to continue its ascent toward world power status and to emerge in the twentieth century as the world’s foremost democratic government. The South’s secession and forceful defense of slavery challenged US nationalism, liberalism, and sense of providential destiny. The young nation had been an independent country for fewer than eighty years, and neither its survival nor its form of government was firmly established in 1861. To the contrary, at the midpoint of the nineteenth century, it was unclear that the “nation state—as opposed to empires or confederations—would define the political organization of Europe and the Americas” or that democratic government would not fall before monarchial or aristocratic rule in the western world. Therefore, the Union’s victory provided a great boost to both nationalism and liberalism in the Americas and Europe and reinforced the American self-image as a chosen people....
The First Perilous Year, 1861
Authors: Fry Joseph A.
Published: September 2019

This chapter analyzes the bases and evolution of Lincoln and Seward’s personal friendship and professional partnership during the first year of the war. As Lincoln solidified his one-war policy and Seward implemented his purposeful bluster warning against European intervention in the American conflict, the two leaders responded to British and French recognition of the South’s status as a belligerent and instituted the North’s blockade of the Confederacy. Lincoln initiated his brilliant representation of the war’s international significance and assumed an increasingly active role as commander in chief, and Seward took the lead in the North’s decision to compromise and accept British demands in the dangerous Trent affair. All of this is set against British and French responses to the American war.
Seward and Empire, 1865–1869
Authors: Fry Joseph A.
Published: September 2019

This chapter examines Seward’s final four years as secretary of state during the Johnson administration, following Lincoln’s death. Sustaining the policy of diplomatic pressure, but disdaining military intervention, Seward defined domestic US calls for a more belligerent posture and defended the Monroe Doctrine by forcing Napoleon III to withdraw French forces from Mexico. More important, the secretary turned back to the imperial agenda he had proclaimed in the 1850s. His greatest imperial success came with the purchase of Alaska; but his emphasis on commercial expansion, attempts to acquire Hawaii and islands in the Caribbean, to build a canal through Panama, and to implement an “open door” policy in East Asia provided a prescient blueprint for US imperial actions and advancement to great power status at the turn of the twentieth century.
Conclusion
Authors: Fields David P.
Published: September 2019

American diplomatic historian Lloyd Gardner once suggested that the constant problem facing Koreans in their twentieth-century relations with the United States was that “Korea was always about someplace else.” In an insightful essay, historian James Matray elaborated on this idea, showing how presidents from Lyndon B. Johnson to George W. Bush made policy decisions affecting the Korean Peninsula that were actually focused on US relations with the Soviet Union, the Middle East, or American domestic politics....
The Apocalyptic Strain in Popular Culture
Authors: Cantor Paul A.
Published: September 2019

This chapter seeks to explain the popularity of grim shows like the zombie narrative The Walking Dead, which seem to delight in portraying the destruction of the world as we know it. The Walking Dead offers a variant of the American dream, because it celebrates the independence of the ordinary people who are forced to fend for themselves in the absence of the authorities and institutions that traditionally had protected and taken care of them. Several of the characters reinvent themselves, going from the meek roles they played in pre-apocalyptic times to strong people. The show reflects widespread anxieties about social and political developments after the 2008 economic downturn. Many Americans felt betrayed by the elites who had claimed to have the expertise to run the country smoothly, and the show generally casts elites in a bad light. The Walking Dead recaptures the pioneer spirit that built America in the first place—a sense of self-reliance that harks back to the American West and frontier existence.
The View from the Top
Authors: Bell Christopher M.
Published: September 2019

This chapter by Christopher M. Bell examines how Winston Churchill's approach to the Battle of the Atlantic was shaped by the demands of British grand strategy. His preference for offensive operations on the largest possible scale deprived the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force's Coastal Command of resources needed for the protection of merchant shipping. Churchill counted on the United States to replace Britain's shipping losses so that imports would not decline to critical levels. American ships did not appear in the expected numbers, and in late 1942 Britain appeared to be heading towards an import crisis. Churchill was forced to reconsider his strategic priorities. Some resources were diverted from the strategic bombing campaign to trade defense, but Churchill remained reluctant to abandon his offensive priorities. He pursued a diplomatic agreement with the United States to secure additional merchant ships and expedited efforts to master the U-boat challenge by increasing the number of very-long-range aircraft capable of protecting Allied convoys in the mid-Atlantic.
All Should be “A” Teams
Authors: Goldrick James
Published: September 2019

This chapter by James Goldrick examines the creation of a sophisticated learning and training system for the anti-U-boat war, which is one of the most significant elements of the Atlantic campaign, critical to the effectiveness of the escort units of the RN and RCN. This system's development took place as both services were forced to adapt rapidly to profound changes in their operational environments. That development faced many challenges, not only from a scarcity of resources, but from the necessity to develop sufficient understanding of the problem. The "master-apprentice" culture of professionalization managed through long service would not serve under the pressure of the oceanic small-ship war. The effort had to be industrialized. Acceptable levels of collective efficiency only became possible when the right equipment and training assets, sufficiently – even if barely – experienced personnel, and proven tactical doctrine could be brought together to provide the necessary fidelity within the training experience. From the outset, this would always be a much more complex and resource-intensive operation than the straightforward working-up of individual units.
“A Most Disagreeable Problem”
Authors: Faulkner Marcus
Published: September 2019

In the vast literature concerning the German attack on Allied maritime communications in the Atlantic theater during the Second World War, one particular factor has received little to no consideration – the potential threat that German aircraft carriers posed to Allied naval operations and the passage of maritime traffic in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. While ultimately the Kriegmarine never fielded an operational carrier, such a development could not be discounted at the time. This chapter addresses what the British knew about the German effort and what implications this had on British strategy, naval planning, and fleet deployments. In covering these aspects, this chapter by Marcus Faulkner fills an existing gap concerning the Admiralty's perception and contributes to understanding the complexity of the maritime threat Britain faced during the war. It also illustrates the problems involved in evaluating enemy military capabilities and intentions on the basis of a very limited intelligence picture. This in turn helps historians understand why the Admiralty remained so apprehensive of the Kriegsmarine's surface fleet until 1943.
Introduction
Authors: Prag Kay
Published: September 2019

This chapter briefly describes the setting up by Dame Kathleen Kenyon of a major project of archaeological excavation in Jerusalem in 1961, and its contemporary aims based on scientific processes. Archaeological knowledge of the city at the time was very limited, based on old excavations, mostly inadequately published. Kenyon’s technical competence to achieve this was based on archaeological experience gained during excavation in Great Britain, Palestine and North Africa. The result was the creation of an archival record and study collection for future research.