bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Ottoman Rome
Authors: Green-Mercado Mayte
Published: May 2020

This chapter examines Morisco apocalyptic texts and inquisitorial sources alongside parallel Venetian, Greek, and Ottoman prophecies in the aftermath of the Battle of Lepanto to trace the Mediterranean-wide idea of the Ottoman sultan as a just ruler. It discusses cases that demonstrate the possibility of the Ottomans and the Spanish meddling in each other's internal politics. This chapter also looks into conspiracies that were considered manifestations of a much larger political reality underpinned by the ongoing imperial competition in the Mediterranean. It suggests that the large imperial blocs chose to engage with each other directly instead of fighting through proxies. They did this not in a simple micro conflict but rather at the Battle of Lepanto, where the mighty Ottoman navy faced the Holy League, a coalition of Christian powers from around the Mediterranean, and suffered great defeat.
Driving Intelligence
Authors: Samuels Richard J.
Published: May 2020

This chapter identifies three generic drivers that affect the shape, pace, and direction of intelligence reform. The first consists of shifts in the strategic environment and the second driver of intelligence reform is technological change. Failure is the third, and often the most proximate, driver of intelligence reform. These three drivers forced the pace of intelligence reform in Japan in much the same way that they compelled reform elsewhere. This chapter observes how the drivers converge with the specific activities in which national intelligence communities are engaged—the “elements” of intelligence. It provides the historical and comparative framework for a subsequent analysis of the Japanese intelligence community.
Tinkering with Failure (1991–2001)
Authors: Samuels Richard J.
Published: May 2020

This chapter provides a straightforward account of Japan's meek surrender to a decade of tentative, groping, half-measure post-Cold War intelligence reform. Like intelligence communities elsewhere, the Japanese intelligence community did not anticipate the end of the Cold War. The “East” and “West” were realigning and even finding common ground—and triumphalism reigned in the “free world.” Since the United States was now by default or by design the world's overwhelming military power, some Japanese policy makers felt less urgency to develop a new, comprehensive intelligence formula to cope with this new world order. The shift in the strategic environment and trade frictions with the United States gave greater purpose to the Japanese's determination to do more and better on their own, and several highly conspicuous intelligence failures would provide the necessary political impetus for change. Experimentation was possible and it was time for tinkering.
Introduction
Authors: Robb Thomas K. , Gill David James
Published: May 2020

This introductory chapter provides an overview of post-World War II relations among the four Western powers: the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. In contrast to the broad strategic cooperation that emerged in Europe after World War II, no formal alliances between Western powers existed throughout the Asia-Pacific until the 1950s. Even when established, these security agreements remained limited in terms of military planning and scope of membership, despite the rising threat posed by the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. To be sure, the Western powers that exerted most influence on security pacts in the region continued to enjoy close relations in many quarters and each held serious concerns about the Communist threat. All four states shared the ties of ancestry, language, and democratic institutions and maintained close economic and security relationships around the world. Yet, however close these four powers might have been to one another, they remained separate, sovereign states with their own interests. Although the pressures created by the Cold War could unite Western powers on an ad hoc basis, long-term strategic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific remained curiously limited. Thus, the purpose of this book is to examine why strategic cooperation among these four powers was so challenging in the Asia-Pacific during the early Cold War.
The Costs of Compromise
Authors: Robb Thomas K. , Gill David James
Published: May 2020

This chapter studies the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). After almost a decade since the end of World War II, the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand once again enjoyed a formal strategic alliance in the Asia-Pacific. The eventual creation of the SEATO in early 1955 complemented the short-term ambitions of all four Western powers in the region. Nevertheless, diplomatic bargaining preceding signature and ratification led to compromises that diluted the usefulness of the security alliance. The United States continued to limit commitments to joint planning after the implementation of the treaty. SEATO was therefore smaller, weaker, and less integrated than originally envisaged. The organization also lacked the necessary military and economic infrastructure to be effective, which helped encourage Australia and New Zealand to focus on regional rather than British Commonwealth interests, shifting focus away from the Middle East and Mediterranean and toward the “near north.”
Medieval Understandings of Charity
Authors: Davis Adam J.
Published: May 2020

This chapter discusses religious and moral ideas about charity, sanctity, and salvation, largely emanating from the University of Paris during the thirteenth century. Medieval representations of charity tended to focus on the almsgiver, not the recipient of charity. Much of the discussion about charity built on a long tradition of associating charity and the works of mercy with penance for sin. Thirteenth-century developments in confessional practices and a growing preoccupation with Purgatory as a real and terrifying place heightened the significance of the works of mercy. Moreover, confessional manuals and treatises on the virtues and vices identified charity as the virtue that most closely corresponded to the vice of avarice; in the increasingly commercial, profit-oriented economy of thirteenth-century Europe, charity therefore had additional social and religious appeal. The growing veneration for charitable work, for example, is reflected in “the sanctification of charity” during the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as sanctity increasingly became tied to the practice of charity. Indeed, popular representations of the saints canonized during this period depicted their extraordinary willingness to make personal sacrifices, debasing themselves and suffering in an effort to alleviate the suffering of others. Hagiographical accounts exalted these charitable saints' selfless service as holy and Christ-like and served as a role model for others to follow.
Managing a Hospital’s Property
Authors: Davis Adam J.
Published: May 2020

This chapter demonstrates the surprising economic power of hospitals and their prominent role in the larger society, including their relationships and conflicts with other institutions. Champagne's largest and wealthiest hospitals received income from ovens and mills; the sale of grain and wine; various kinds of rents and tithes; the sale of arable land, vineyards, and forests; and the provision of interest loans. The diversity of these hospitals' holdings is remarkable, as is the degree to which these charitable and religious institutions were engaged in various kinds of markets. Those managing the properties belonging to hospitals were very much thinking about the long-term economic growth of their institutions. In the eyes of Jacques de Vitry and other church reformers, what these hospitals were doing with the alms they received was regarded as “hoarding,” since they were not immediately dispensing alms to those most in need, but investing in income-producing fiefs, arable land, vineyards, forests, houses, mills, and various kinds of rents. While it was certainly true that the alms given to hospitals were used for pittances of food and clothing for the sick poor or to pay a hospital chaplain who supplied what was thought to be life-saving sacramental medicine or the countless other needs these institutions had, the reality was that unlike some of the weak and vulnerable guests they served, some hospitals were powerful landlords and major players in the urban economy.
The Sick Poor and the Economy of Care
Authors: Davis Adam J.
Published: May 2020

This chapter studies the recipients of care in medieval hospitals, interrogating who these guests were and what kind of care they received. It argues that these guests played a vital role in the “economy of salvation” and were not simply the passive recipients of care. While the sick poor who were admitted to hospitals were often very dependent on the physical and spiritual assistance provided to them by a hospital's personnel, they also carried with them a certain kind of spiritual power as the intercessors who might assist donors and the hospital brethren in obtaining salvation. The sick poor thus played a central role in the triangular system of exchange involving hospital workers, benefactors, and God. The chapter then shows that the charitable activities of hospitals extended outside the hospital walls to the city streets, where various kinds of charitable assistance were also provided for by family members, neighbors, and other religious organizations. While continuing to focus on the example of Champagne, it also draws on examples from other regions, mostly in northern France.
Getting Organized
Authors: Vosko Leah F.
Published: May 2020

This chapter details the attempts of the union representing Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) employees at Sidhu & Sons to organize, gain certification, and secure a first collective agreement for a bargaining unit encompassing participants in a temporary migrant work program (TMWP) permitting circularity. Through an analysis of the legal proceedings surrounding United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) Local 1518's bid for certification, it explores SAWP employees' two important motivations for organizing: namely, to preempt termination without just cause prompting premature repatriation and to secure mechanisms for recall suitable to workers laboring transnationally. Local 1518, in seeking to represent SAWP employees, came up against tensions arising both from the Labour Relations Board's (LRB) understanding of its role of facilitating access to collective bargaining under the Labour Relations Code (LRC) and from limits posed by the parameters of the TMWP in play. Consequently, the unit obtained certification, but only on a restricted basis. At the same time, it introduced mechanisms aiming to limit termination without just cause prompting premature repatriation and offered novel provisions on recall and seniority.
Living and Dying Together
Authors: Palmer James A.
Published: May 2020

This chapter analyzes the testamentary record of fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century Rome, highlighting several noteworthy elements. Romans understood pious giving to be spiritually beneficial, as did all their contemporaries. However, they understood this kind of beneficial gift to be viable even outside the traditional categories of pious practice, stretching to include kin of all sorts, as well as a whole array of others with whom they shared important ties. In all such cases, the implication of the gift as an act of patrimonial stewardship and as occurring within the larger spiritual economy were equally critical elements, shaping the direction and form of giving. Over the course of the conflict-ridden fourteenth century, in which the social fabric of Rome was repeatedly torn and haphazardly stitched back together again, Roman testators took advantage of a lack of statutory constraint to bind themselves to one another by means of such pious gifts. Even after the return of the papacy, an event anticipated and dreaded by various factions, and the triumph of that papacy over Rome's free commune, these bonds and the mechanisms for creating and sustaining these bonds endured.
At the Belgrade Fairgrounds
Authors: Subotić Jelena
Published: May 2020

This chapter reveals that Holocaust remembrance in Serbia was never really about the Holocaust. During socialist Yugoslavia, Holocaust remembrance was placed within a larger narrative of Yugoslav antifascism and resistance—its multiculturalism and commitment to a pan-national socialist identity. To the extent that the Jewish victims of the Holocaust were ever memorialized, this remembrance was either a product of Jewish organizations and initiatives or, in state efforts, a nonethnic remembrance that subsumed Jewish suffering under the larger framework of antifascist struggle and triumph. After the end of communism, however, Holocaust remembrance became a critical element in the total delegitimation of communism. This erasure of the communist past was built around an attack on Yugoslav multiculturalism, an attack which then provided legitimacy to the role of nationalism as the ordering principle in the postcommunist state and the increasing importance of maintaining an ethnically homogeneous body politic. A significant part of this project involved breaking the commitment to pan-national brotherhood and unity and thus making Yugoslavia retrospectively seem unnatural and artificial.
Time and the Modern
Authors: Assmann Aleida
Published: May 2020

This chapter focuses on an essay written by Charles Baudelaire. The essay describes the discovery of the present as an utterly isolated and fleeting moment. The sense of time related to that discovery is, in the most literal sense, borderline. While extremely powerful as a paradigm of artistic perception that disrupts both routinized habits of seeing and conventions of representation, the borderline experience of time encapsulated by it is, however, incompatible with basic human needs like experience, sociality, activity, meaning, or identity. Therefore, we experience the present precisely not as a fleeting “now” but as an already extended span of time that can be related to entirely different forms of duration. Following this examination of Baudelaire's artistic determination of the present and the Zeitroman as a further, and decisively modern, experiment with time, this chapter concludes by exploring the connections between time and modernity in more recent historiographical theory.
Is Time out of Joint?
Authors: Assmann Aleida
Published: May 2020

This chapter argues that we are not at the terminal end of the modern time regime but merely at the beginning of its renewal. Before sketching out the main features of this renewal, the chapter first considers the disorientation and uncertainty that accompanies this temporal reorientation. Like William Shakespeare's Hamlet at the beginning of the Renaissance four hundred years ago, we are today being confronted with a change of temporal ontology. Here, Hamlet's cry, “The time is out of joint!” is an alarming diagnosis that has been steadily intensifying since the beginning of the twenty-first century. And as this chapter shows, it has only become more and more deafening.
The Past Is Not Past; or, On Repairing the Modern Time Regime
Authors: Assmann Aleida
Published: May 2020

This chapter argues for the repair of the modern time regime. It shows that saving the past by means of a “culture of preservation” is itself a central part of Western modernization. However, there is as yet no straight line leading from this compensatory culture of preservation to the entire spectrum of practices, problems, and controversies associated with the “cultures of memory.” Under the paradigm of cultural memory, the past in particular is no longer the exclusive domain of the historian, nor can the use made of it be reduced to the function of a comforting medium of deceleration. The new entanglement of the past with the future—of the space of experience with the horizon of expectation—that characterizes the present time regime has implications, requirements, and effects that are much more far-reaching. New perspectives on and interests in the past now have important roles to play. The modern time regime therefore needs not only compensation, but also repair.
Movements for Land Rights in Democratic Indonesia
Authors: Anugrah Iqra
Published: May 2020

This chapter deals with land rights, which have long been a matter of contention in Indonesia. It argues that a wave of peasant protests in the late Suharto period—and, in particular, a series of high-profile land disputes—not only gave rise to a series of regional peasant unions but also helped destabilize the regime. Like the labor movement, the peasant movement played little or no part in the actual moment of regime change. But, also like the labor movement, peasant movements have since worked to make use of the new political spaces made available to them by democratization. As the movement for land rights has evolved, it has been forced to broaden its repertoire of action from traditional modes of contentious politics, such as mass mobilization, to include tactics such as critical knowledge production, engagement in electoral politics, and a range of economic strategies. The chapter concludes, however, that the movement failed to mount an effective challenge to the dominance of Indonesia's political and economic elites in this domain.
Honor, Status, Masculinity
Authors: Muschalek Marie
Published: May 2020

This chapter offers a portrait of the patrolmen who made up the Landespolizei. Juxtaposing African and German life stories, it traces their socioeconomic and cultural upbringings and depicts the material conditions within which the policemen lived and worked while drawing connections to the values and identities these men aspired to. Three elements of identity formation are considered in depth: social class, soldiery, and masculinity. The chapter shows that the policemen's liminal social standing placed them at an uncomfortable albeit central position within the colonial power constellation. And although the men came from quite disparate cultural worlds, all were deeply invested in honor and a clientage relationship to the state—creating a peculiar overlap of moral codes and principles of social organization.
Soldier-Bureaucrats
Authors: Muschalek Marie
Published: May 2020

This chapter addresses the hybrid semi-civilian and semi-military institutional setting within which police codes of behavior emerged. On the one hand, police leadership held on tightly to military notions of etiquette, proper appearance, comradeship, and loyalty. This attitude became particularly apparent in police training. Not legal knowledge or administrational skills, but an imposing military habitus and access to lethal force were to provide the foundation for quality policing. On the other hand, being charged with civilian tasks, the policemen of the Landespolizei created a professional culture that increasingly introduced administrational techniques as modes of validation and legitimization. To them, it mattered that the job was done in accordance with an ever growing complex of decrees as well as that it was documented in proper form. In short, policemen were men of guns and paper—they injured and killed people “by the book.” This chapter returns to the significance of honor, demonstrating how the concern for proper appearance and performance was the most decisive factor in the emergence of a Landespolizei organizational culture.
Hitler’s Most Intimate Enemy
Authors: Boes Tobias
Published: May 2020

This chapter illustrates how Thomas Mann created a novel role for the artist: fully engaged with the political events of the day through a variety of twentieth-century media and yet fiercely protective of an independent stance. The 1930s was a decade in which governments of various stripes throughout the world discovered the value of employing artists to drum up support within a populist base. And Mann was a patriotic resident of the United States who throughout the war years carefully refrained from criticizing his adoptive country. But his voice and his aims were always unmistakably his own, and he agitated for the United States because he equated the American cause with that of liberal democracy, not because of any government commission. The chapter further explains that Mann's relocation to California can serve as a symbolic marker of this transition. Indeed, it was during his residency in Pacific Palisades as well that he reached the apogee of his trajectory as an anti-Nazi celebrity in the eyes of the American public.
A Blooming Flower
Authors: Boes Tobias
Published: May 2020

This chapter highlights the extent to which media featured as weapons in Thomas Mann's struggle against Nazism. Mann benefited from government–industry collaborations, for example, by acquiring access to American studios to record propaganda broadcasts that were then carried into Nazi-occupied Europe. His main intermediary on the continent, however, was his old German publisher Gottfried Bermann Fischer, who fought a battle of his own to keep Mann's books available in those countries that had not yet been conquered by the Nazis. Both forms of transmission—the transmission of Mann's voice via radio waves and the transmission of his books via increasingly convoluted distribution networks—were beset by all sorts of difficulties during wartime. But both were essential in keeping the author's influence alive in a time when he was unable to personally connect to his readership.
Interlude V: Doctor Faustus (1948)
Authors: Boes Tobias
Published: May 2020

Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkühn, as Told by a Friend is not only the most ambitious work of literature that Thomas Mann wrote during his American exile but also the one most explicitly concerned with the fate of the artist under conditions of totalitarian domination. Begun in May 1943 and completed in January 1947 (the first German-language edition was published later that same year; the first American edition, in 1948), the composition of ...
Blood in the Time of the Civic
Authors: Copeman Jacob , Banerjee Dwaipayan
Published: May 2020

This chapter focuses on blood in the time of the civic—that is, blood that is donated voluntarily as a dutiful contribution to civic life, that in turn ensures the continued efficacy and productivity of transfusion medicine. These voluntary donations take place according to a seemingly simple biological time map: the biological time of cellular production determines the biomedically mandated three-month gap between donations. The time regime of the repeated voluntary donation emerges from and is mapped upon the lifetime of blood cells. This is in contrast to apparently less civic-minded blood donation modes: the potentially dangerous commercial transaction of paid blood donation and the one-time mode of “replacement” donation, performed in order to release blood for the benefit of one's immediate family member in need of transfusion. As this chapter shows, these modes of donation are characterized by different temporalities. A routine of dutiful repetitive bloodshed structures voluntary blood donation's time of the civic.
The Birth of Central Banking, 1955–1956
Authors: Thúc Vũ Quốc
Published: May 2020

This chapter discusses the experiences and challenges faced by the former governor of the National Bank of Vietnam. It also describes his experiences prior to the bank's establishment, as Vietnam negotiated with France in the Four-Party Conference on the various issues related to the transfer of sovereignty. During this time, Vietnam had inherited from the French government an empty treasury, a disheartened French business community, and a bureaucracy entrenched in antiquated colonial methods. It was against this gloomy backdrop that American aid began to arrive, first to help Northerners resettle in their new land, and later, to fund the import of American consumer goods for general public consumption, an initiative known as the Commercial Import Program. The chapter also discusses the 1956 Banknote Exchange Scandal, which highlighted the flaws inherent in the banknote counting process.
Reflections of a Frontline Soldier
Authors: Quyền Bùi
Published: May 2020

This chapter turns to the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Created to defend a new state facing formidable internal and external challenges, the ARVN was tasked with protecting the country and deterring its enemies. And when two countries were in conflict and could not resolve their differences peacefully, armed confrontation was the likely outcome. In this vein, the chapter considers the history of the ARVN and how it had to deal with a threat that did not come from outside the country. For the ARVN, communist commanders' goals were ranked as follows: first and foremost was “winning the enemy's heart and mind” or psychological warfare; second, dismantling the enemy's logistical supplies; and third, destroying the enemy's forces. Drawing on theorists such as Sun Tzu, the enemy prioritized psychological warfare in order to achieve its objectives while minimizing casualties. For the Republic of Vietnam, on the other hand, the major difficulty was to battle an enemy that belonged to the same nation and shared the same culture and language but was subjugated by the communist ideology.
The Philosophies and Development of a Free Education
Authors: Phước Nguyễn Hữu
Published: May 2020

This chapter traces the development of Vietnam's education system when the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) took over. At the time, the Ministry of Education (MOE) continued the French-style centralized educational system. Other developments included an overwhelming preponderance of college-preparatory high schools and a dichotomy of one system for technical agricultural schools and another for university in higher education. The chapter shows that it was during the early years of the RVN that the RVN's first educational guiding principle emerged, which was nationalism. However, education in general did not undergo significant changes for the newly formed republic, which faced multiple reorganizations and political realignments. The education system continued to be viewed as a legacy rather than a Vietnamese system that would serve the needs of Vietnamese society. This began to change in the 1950s, when it was established that Vietnamese education should be “nationalistic,” “humanistic,” and of “open mind for changes.”
Personal Reflections on the Educational System
Authors: Sơn Võ Kim
Published: May 2020

This chapter provides some reflections on the educational reforms conducted by the Republic of Vietnam (RVN). It first discusses the Vietnamization of the French educational system during the first decade of the republic. This process contributed to a sharp rise in the social demand for education at all levels, which in turn supported the growth of new kinds of schools such as private universities and community colleges. Through the author's personal experience working in the Faculty of Education, the National Wards High School, and a private Catholic school, the chapter reveals snapshots of the development of the diverse and dynamic educational system in the RVN. In the conclusion, the chapter briefly recounts the author's work as an expert on education from the United States to help the post-1975 Vietnamese government reform its educational system.
Life And Work of a Journalist
Authors: Trần Phạm
Published: May 2020

This chapter recounts the major events and developments in the press scene in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN). It first considers the press under the First Republic (1960–1963) and afterward the Second Republic (1963–1975). Under the First Republic, the press was controlled in two ways to keep it from opposing the government. First, the government gave newspapers coupons to buy newsprint at subsidized prices. Next, all the newspapers had to work with the exclusive distributor Thống Nhất, a commercial entity under government control. From 1964 until 1965, the press in South Vietnam was very much controlled by the various semicivilian, semimilitary governments and was heavily influenced by the armed forces. To conclude, the chapter briefly discusses the Press Law and other forms of press control in today's communist Vietnam for the purpose of comparison.
Introduction
Authors: Young Ken , Schilling Warner R.
Published: May 2020

This introductory chapter provides some background into the events leading up to President Harry S. Truman's intent to develop a hydrogen bomb, otherwise known as the “Super.” The short interval between the surprise Soviet atomic test in late summer 1949 and the presidential decision of January 1950, coupled with the strictly limited cast of individuals who played a part in it, poses the question of why Truman acted as he did. There are few clear answers to be found in the vast body of Truman scholarship or in the president's memoirs, which pass lightly over the decision. Truman, wedded to the idea of U.S. nuclear superiority as a guarantor of peace, paid little regard to the phenomenal increase in the destructive power of the hydrogen bomb. He saw it as no more than a qualitative enhancement of what was already in the armory.
The Shock of the “New World”
Authors: Young Ken , Schilling Warner R.
Published: May 2020

This chapter is an account of the impact on U.S. thinking and policy of the first Soviet atomic bomb test. It ended the U.S. monopoly of atomic weapons—a development that some had foreseen and others had discounted as a possibility. An atomic Russia triggered fears of a “bolt from the blue” assault on U.S. cities. One reaction was to seek to prioritize U.S. air defenses. Another was to confirm the program agreed to that summer to accelerate the production of fissionable material for atomic bombs. The surge of anxiety also brought hitherto obscure speculations about thermonuclear physics into the public domain. It seemed apparent to some that the Soviet nuclear threat should be countered not by a multiplication of atomic bombs but by an American “superbomb.”
A Decision Reached
Authors: Young Ken , Schilling Warner R.
Published: May 2020

This chapter recounts the arrival at the decision. Before the commissioners, split three to two against the Super, resumed their discussions in November 1949, Truman had been made aware of the differences of views. Meanwhile, Oppenheimer threatened to put the General Advisory Committee's opposing view directly to the president rather than going through the commission, in the event of the full Atomic Energy Commission deciding in favor of the Super. By the end of January 1950, the tide of opinion within the closed circle of participants was beginning to flow against the dissenters. They were skillfully outmaneuvered to provide the authoritative advice that Truman needed to close the debate and authorize not just the expansion of theoretical work, but the path ahead to development and testing.
Dissent and Development
Authors: Young Ken , Schilling Warner R.
Published: May 2020

This chapter examines the arguments that had divided U.S. atomic science against a changing landscape of decision. These include: arguments about the feasibility of the Super, a matter only decisively settled by the first test, and about its cost, in monetary terms and in terms of precious plutonium foregone. Two other key arguments are reviewed. The first is that even if the Super proved feasible and cost effective, it had little military utility. The second is that even were deployment in war to be considered desirable, so massive a weapon would be undeliverable. On each of these issues the ground shifted under the feet of the participants in the space of just five years.
Conclusions
Authors: Young Ken , Schilling Warner R.
Published: May 2020

This concluding chapter returns to the alignment of forces that worked to sideline those scientists who opposed the then-predominant doctrine of strategic bombing. It stresses the confusion and the acrimony of the brief but decisive period in which the Super's potential for U.S. security or global insecurity was contested. With distance, it becomes possible to understand the vigor and passion with which the Super, and the deployment of nuclear weapons for massive retaliation, was resisted, as well as the organizational imperatives of air force leaders to outwit that resistance, the better to protect the deeply embedded air power doctrines that prevailed at that time. The result is that the world was left with the proliferation of nuclear and thermonuclear weaponry. The question remains, however, as to whether that proliferation would bring stability or fragility.
Cyberculture
Authors: Tierney Matt
Published: May 2020

This chapter begins by discussing the interconnection of transformations in cybernetics (automation), weaponry (the atomic bomb), and human rights (antiblack racism). It focuses on cyberculture that was coined by Alice Mary Hilton and then extended conceptually and politically by the Ad Hoc Committee on the Triple Revolution. The Ad Hoc committee, in 1964, mailed a letter to Lyndon Johnson, explaining that an expansion of industrial automation might result in an alleviation of racism and war. With a luminous gang of signatories, this letter represents a mere precursor to contemporary accelerationist movements. Yet in its more immediate effects, not as an endorsement of accelerated automation but instead as a critique of technologized violence. The chapter ends with a theory of cyberculture, which reveals something beyond accelerated automation.
Distortion
Authors: Tierney Matt
Published: May 2020

This chapter talks about distortion as a form of dismantling. It describes distortion as the historical and theoretical technique by which readers learn to approach political documents as if they were science fiction. When considered as a vehicle of distortion, literature is measured for its potential to alter exploitative conditions, like those of war, patriarchy, and racism. The science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany insists that transformative change takes shape neither in utopian nor in dystopian visions of the future, but rather in efforts toward significant distortion of the present. This attitude, which is also a theory and practice of literature, is one way to describe the inheritance of cyberculture in the works of writers and activists who employed speculative language to repurpose the thought of Alice Mary Hilton and the Ad Hoc Committee. These writers and activists focused not on the machines that would unveil the myth of scarcity, but instead isolate the forms of human life and relation that would follow the act of unveiling.
Conclusion
Authors: Tierney Matt
Published: May 2020

This chapter concludes that unbridled technology is catastrophic to man's future. But it is equally obvious that what man has learned about the uses of technology should not, cannot ever be lost. Yet acknowledging the need to be wary is not the same as using caution to found a politics of dismantling in the present. In the twenty-first century, a time and place far from the Maine conversations of the Boggses and Paines, there must be a willingness to lose the machines. To decide in advance not to lose them is only the least objectionable version of the ambivalent formula that technology should not be unbridled, and that people want something other than a technological revolution, but the value of certain machines cannot ever be lost. It was a powerful ambivalence in its moment, because it called out unbridled exploitation but held firm to technological possibility. But at this late date, when tech firms and state agents hold all the codes, something still more urgent is required: to sweep past noncommittal logics, to risk relinquishing any use of any machine, and to move in groups toward more concrete practices of technological responsibility through dismantling.
Introduction
Authors: Kerrissey Jasmine , Weinbaum Eve , Hammonds Clare , Juravich Tom , Clawson Dan
Published: May 2020

This introductory chapter considers the causes for the sharp increase in inequality, weakened labor and left movements, and the resulting dominance of the corporate agenda following the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. Several trends have converged to define this moment. First, neoliberalism dominates the global economy. The neoliberal approach rejects the historical role of the government in overseeing the economy, which had been in place since the New Deal. The second trend is the process of globalization. Markets, finance, and production chains are not national but rather international, with capital and resources originating in different countries and crossing national borders. The third force is financialization. Financial interests increasingly dominate manufacturing and service industries.
Walker’s Wisconsin and the Future of the United States
Authors: Shelton Jon
Published: May 2020

This chapter outlines the rise of Scott Walker in Wisconsin, which foreshadowed contemporary attacks on public-sector workers and the election of Trump. As the industrial economy collapsed and Wisconsin workers' resentment intensified, Walker won the governor's seat in 2010 by blaming public workers and the special privileges they enjoyed and by promising to restore employment for industrial workers. The chapter details how Walker forced through Act 10, a legislative attack on unions in what had been one of the most progressive states. But despite Walker's promises, Wisconsin lags far behind projected job growth and employment levels in neighboring Minnesota, with its progressive agenda. The Walker agenda, and the coalitions that arose to resist it, presaged the Trump moment; it is an open question whether Walker's 2018 ouster itself is a precursor to future elections.
Privatization—Chipping Away at Government
Authors: Cohen Donald
Published: May 2020

This chapter focuses on the right wing's astonishingly successful efforts to privatize public goods and services. Privatization has been one of the highest priorities of the right wing for many years, and the chapter shows how it threatens both labor and democracy. Intentionally blurring the lines between public and private institutions, private companies and market forces undermine the common good. This chapter documents the history of privatization in the United States, from President Reagan's early efforts to Clinton and Gore's belief in private markets. Showing how privatization undermines democratic government, the chapter describes complex contracts that are difficult to understand, poorly negotiated “public–private partnership” deals, and contracts that provide incentives to deny public services. With huge amounts of money at stake, privateers are increasingly weighing in on policy debates—not based on the public interest but rather in pursuit of avenues that increase their revenues, profits, and market share. Privatization not only destroys union jobs but also aims to cripple union political involvement so that the corporate agenda can spread unfettered. Nevertheless, community-based battles against privatization have succeeded in many localities, demonstrating the power of fighting back to defend public services, public jobs, and democratic processes.
Building a Pro-Worker, Pro-Union Climate Movement
Authors: Skinner Lara
Published: May 2020

This chapter outlines tensions among unions in the energy sector and debates about a pro-climate, pro-worker agenda. Proposals for “green jobs” that protect the environment do not ensure good, union jobs. Energy-sector unions have often been wary of such proposals, arguing correctly that green jobs are rarely available in the same quality or quantity as jobs in fossil-fuel industries. Drawing on cases from climate initiatives in New York State, this chapter argues that unions must be at the table when proposals to expand green jobs are designed and implemented. It outlines a practical plan for unions to work with politicians and communities to ensure “just transition.” The chapter explains that while climate change issues have often pitted labor unions against the environmental movement and its progressive allies, there are also examples of successful “blue–green” alliances. These coalitions strengthen the labor movement by forging new ties with important allies and allowing workers to proactively shape the role of unions and workers in the emerging green economy.
Strategic Disengagement
Authors: Davis Ja’Dell
Published: May 2020

This chapter provides an intersectional perspective on gendered racial-ethnic identities (a gender identity that is racialized and a racial-ethnic identity that is gendered), with a focus on experiences of intellectual invalidation. Black women were the most likely to report these alienating campus experiences, and many responded with identity-protection coping strategies that led them to disconnect from campus life or limit their engagement to activities that affirmed their gendered racial-ethnic identity. This chapter illustrates the benefits and costs of certain Black interviewees' conscious decisions to disconnect from general college life. One approach was blanket rejection, while another involved severely narrowing the range of spaces and people that incorporated into the college experience. A third and more extreme form of disconnecting highlights the role that counterspaces play in making the disconnection from college life sustainable.
Power in the Midst of Powerlessness
Authors: Hope Elan
Published: May 2020

This chapter provides insight into how Black and Latinx students navigated their identity as activists during a period in American history when social media documentation of racially-ethnically motivated violence made it impossible to pretend that America had entered a post-racial state of consciousness. There was little variation in how these students felt about police brutality and the targeting of Latinx deportation; almost all were disturbed, most were outraged. However, there was variation in the public visibility of their response and engagement with activism. Because of these societal realities, Black and Latinx college students have to balance academic pursuits with evolving racial-ethnic identity and growing civic purpose. As such, this chapter focuses on how identity-based counterspaces and activist campus culture facilitate Latinx and Black students' critical examination of race-ethnicity and racism.
(Dis)Integration
Authors: Keels Micere
Published: May 2020

This concluding chapter takes a step back to examine the bigger picture and suggests ways that colleges and universities could achieve greater integration by attending to difference. Latinx and Black students' college-going identity challenges are often created through institutional action and inaction, and can be resolved through institutional action. Higher education has shown itself to be a revolving door that puts too many Latinx and Black students right back outside their walls, with student debt and without a degree that would lead to the wages needed to service that debt. Although the persistence problem has been foregrounded throughout this work, the chapter shows that the broader goal of campus counterspaces is fostering persistence coupled with psychological, emotional, and cultural well-being. Too many studies show that for historically marginalized students, educational success comes at a high personal cost.
Introduction
Authors: Smith Martin
Published: May 2020

This introductory chapter discusses the armed struggle by the Karen National Union (KNU). From the outbreak of fighting in January 1949, the KNU's history reflects a time of turbulence and state failure in Burma (modern-day Myanmar) that has continued until the present day. Despite the long years of conflict, reports or details of the people who have lived through these experiences on the front line remain very scant. In recent years, as the door to the country has opened, there has been greater international recognition of the deep traumas that many communities have passed through. There is also a greater effort among the opposing parties themselves to try and achieve national peace and reconciliation. It is within this context that retired brigadier general Saw Ralph and Naw Sheera are introduced, and their stories placed within key moments in Burma's modern history.
Walking Across Burma
Authors: Ralph Saw , Sheera Naw , Olinga-Shannon Stephanie
Published: May 2020

This chapter details Saw Ralph's journey across Burma as a soldier. Along the way, he encounters new people and new locales, showcasing the ethnic tensions among the varied Burmese population. The journey is not entirely a pleasant one for Saw Ralph and his unit, however, and this chapter shows his inexperience in matters of survival as well as the tensions between the soldiers and their commanding officers. In June 1949, the Karen war establishment introduced major changes to the structure of the forces Ralph was a part of. The army, which had been part of the Karen National Defence Organisation, was renamed the Kawthoolei Armed Forces (KAF) and its war office was located in Papun. The name was changed to show that the army was part of Karen territory.
Psychological Warfare
Authors: Ralph Saw , Sheera Naw , Olinga-Shannon Stephanie
Published: May 2020

This chapter recounts the series of events which led to Saw Ralph's extended leave from the army. It begins with tensions within the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) as Karen officers began imitating Burmese soldiers in forcibly recruiting more soldiers for the army. These instances of misconduct boiled up in 1994, when Buddhist monks and the Karen Buddhist community expressed their dissatisfaction. This eventually led to tensions between Karen Buddhists and Christians, which was further inflamed with the help of the Burmese. The chapter also details the fall of Manerplaw and Ralph's eventual request for extended leave, which seemed to have effectively become his retirement.
Life after the Revolution
Authors: Ralph Saw , Sheera Naw , Olinga-Shannon Stephanie
Published: May 2020

This chapter chronicles the life of Saw Ralph and his family after the revolution. It begins with his time living as a refugee in Thailand and then turns to his eventual move to Australia. Here, Saw Ralph reflects on the difficulties and challenges his family endured as a result of Saw Ralph's participation in the revolution. It also covers Saw Ralph's day-to-day life in Australia, particularly his attempts to learn English and his efforts to delve further into Christianity. Alongside these activities, Saw Ralph faces difficulties adjusting to civilian life, although he further reveals that despite his old age, he remains as active as ever.
Marriage
Authors: Ralph Saw , Sheera Naw , Olinga-Shannon Stephanie
Published: May 2020

This chapter talks about Naw Sheera's courtship and, later, marriage with Saw Ralph. The couple met in the Pe Krew village where she taught. Saw Ralph was stationed there as part of the Karen National Liberation Army (KLNA). Initially, she was uninterested in his advances, but Saw Ralph persisted, and over time, Naw Sheera fell in love with him through sustained correspondence. The challenges of their courtship would persist, however, as Saw Ralph arranged to marry her with the KLNA's permission. This move, though necessary on Saw Ralph's part, resulted in difficulties and delays before the couple were finally married. They did get married eventually, however, and Naw Sheera began to realize that this marriage signaled further challenges ahead for her.
Children
Authors: Ralph Saw , Sheera Naw , Olinga-Shannon Stephanie
Published: May 2020

This chapter chronicles the early years of Naw Sheera's marriage, during which time she had to live on her own as a single mother because her husband was constantly on the move. The Karen Revolution was still ongoing, and Naw Sheera had to be prepared to run as she had once tried to run from the Japanese. In addition to these difficulties, she also had to raise her children alone. Though Saw Ralph tried to be present in her life, it was clear that he was very much new to fatherhood and had considerable difficulty adjusting to having a wife and children to look after. Aside from Naw Sheera's home life, this chapter also depicts her flight from, and eventual capture, by the Burmese.