Thesis advisor: James Keenan / Thesis advisor: Brian Dunkle / From its earliest days, Christianity has debated about when and how force can be used to repel harm without incurring sin. Although moderation and restriction have often been advocated both on a personal and on a social level, strict passivity has rarely been the proposed solution in mainstream Christianity when individuals or nations are confronted with harm. The Just War tradition, in its many variations, was born precisely out of this desire to make sense of how force can be used in a Christian way. And it soon became the prevalent theory throughout Christianity to address issues of violence, war, and force in general. What this thesis intends to argue is that Just War theory, despite all its pervasiveness, is flawed in some crucial aspects when scrutinized from a Christian viewpoint. Three such aspects seem to be especially relevant: Just War tradition is not grounded enough in Scripture; its jus ad bellum and jus in bello criteria do not protect in a satisfactory way the innocent who face harm; and it is a theory that is only reactive to force being imposed upon others. Because of these three flaws, it will be claimed that in the process of giving its support to Just War theory Christianity has largely forgotten an older, broader tradition. The “be angry, but do not sin” tradition has Scriptural and philosophical roots that, when combined, can bring a Christian virtue ethics to a much better understanding of when and how forceful intervention in the social sphere is required. At the very least, this anger tradition does not fall prey to the three criticisms that are addressed towards Just War – and that seems to make it especially valuable. Righteous anger, then, and not Just War, should be what guides Christianity in its thinking about how and when force can be used without incurring sin. That is the contention of this thesis. / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

This manuscript addresses an important empirical regularity: Why are revolutionary leaders more likely to initiate conflict? With the goal of explaining this regularity, I offer an identity-driven model of decision making that can explain why certain leaders are more likely to take risky gambles. Broadly, this manuscript provides a different model of decision making that emphasizes emotion and identity as key to explain decision making. I offer a plausibility probe of the identity-driven model with four in-depth case studies: The initiation of the Iran-Iraq War, the initiation of the Gulf War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the start of the Korean War. I use the congruence method and process tracing to test the plausibility probe. I find strong support in two cases—the initiation of the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War—and mixed support for the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Korean War.

Trick of the Light is an experiment in strategic game design based on imperfect information in a unique fog of war setting. A hybrid of real-time-strategy, role-playing-game and roguelike genres, the game challenges players to maintain an expansive base system without being able to see anything beyond their own limited vision radius. All units, allied or enemy, maintain private memories about what they have seen, and must directly exchange information to keep up to date. The player acts as commander, making decisions and giving orders while dealing with adversaries, sabotage and misinformation. Testing was done to see if the new concepts could be understood in-game and garner any interest for further development, which proved to be positive in both cases despite complaints related to having less direct control over allies.

This thesis explores the role of Caron de Beaumarchais in the American Revolution as a controversial topic in history and his shipping arms and ammunition to America during the 1777 campaign.

No description available.

This thesis concerns the mobilisation of children who lived within a clearly defined area of Scotland known as the 42nd Regimental Area during the Great War. It asserts that while these children lived through a time of enormous national and local upheaval, the majority of this numerically significant but often overlooked section of the population in terms of Great War studies were far from being helpless witnesses to the conflict on the Home Front or even passive bystanders, but were instead overwhelmingly reasonably well informed supporters of and valued net contributors to the British war effort. This thesis takes the form of a concentrated regional study, drawing heavily both on local sources and the holdings of the four Local Authority archives involved as it traces the evolution of children’s involvement in support work from their initial self-mobilisation to the eventual effective adult capture and direction of their work in the national interest. It takes the shape of a descriptive account of the local children’s war support activities which runs in parallel with analysis of the form of their physical and mental mobilisation and deployment, the limitations placed on that process, the sources of their motivation and an estimate of the extent of their financial contribution to the British war effort. This thesis attempts to strike and maintain an ongoing balance between the need to deal directly with the lived experience of local children while relating that same experience to the broader issues which dominate the historiography of the Great War on the Home Front. The final product is intended to expand current understanding of the shape of children’s mobilisation during the Great War through a study of the processes involved as well as the extent and effectiveness of that movement in one Scottish Regimental Area.

acase@tulane.edu / 1 / Ashley K. Schmidt

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, History Dept., 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 258-268). Electronic version also available.