Much discussed and little understood, Richard Nixon's southern strategy demands scrutiny. A brief survey of the literature suggests that study on this controversial topic has reached an impasse. Southern historians keen to emphasise the importance of class in the region's partisan development over the last fifty years insist that any southern strategy predicated on racialised appeals to disaffected white conservatives was doomed to failure. Conversely, conventional accounts of the Nixon era remain wedded to the view that the southern strategy represented a successful devil's bargain whereby an avaricious Californian exchanged the promise of racial justice for black southerners in return for white Dixie's electoral votes. Most sobering of all are political scientists concerned with executive power, who evidence the limited discretion enjoyed by presidents to implement any agenda inimical to the corporate will of the federal bureaucracy. Since Nixon's executive departments were brimming with Democratic holdovers from the Kennedy and Johnson years, the question of whether or not the President demanded concessions to southern racists apparently becomes more or less irrelevant: the 'fourth branch' of the federal government inevitably ensured that a southern strategy was simply impossible to execute. In reality, much of this stalemate is the product of academic territorial warfare on the battleground of a subject wide open to multiple interpretations. A southern historian keen to showcase the importance of his local research is likely to show little interest in evidence that a President based in Washington D.C. could initiate social change in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Similarly, political scientists fighting an unrewarding battle to emphasise the autonomy of federal departments are naturally disinclined to highlight examples of presidential willpower altering bureaucratic culture. Nevertheless, an intriguing paradox remains in evidence. Despite leaning more towards the political philosophy of antediluvian white southerners than the demands of black Americans, Richard Nixon presided over a period of such fundamental social reconstruction below the Mason-Dixie line that he could legitimately claim to have desegregated more southern schools than any other President in history. Whilst a raft of excellent monologues demonstrating the impact of local movements down South on national politics have been published over the last decade, few have even attempted to explain this peculiar phenomenon. As Matthew Lassiter observed in a Journal of American History roundtable on American conservatism in December 2011, 'the recent pendulum swing has overstated the case for a rightward shift in American politics by focusing too narrowly on partisan narratives and specific election cycles rather than on the more complex dynamics of political culture, political economy, and public policy.' The purpose of this thesis is to explain how a President notorious for pursuing the votes of white segregationists rested at the head of a federal government that ruthlessly dismantled Jim Crow. By incorporating the range of methodologies elucidated above, it will identify exactly how much influence President Nixon and his executive officers exerted over civil rights policy. Was Nixon's reactionary agenda thwarted by over-mighty bureaucrats? Or did the President act more responsibly than the majority of commentators have admitted?

One medium has dominated accounts of American art in the years following the Second World War. The period witnessed, in the words of one critic, a 'Triumph of American Painting', with advances in the easel picture far surpassing those in other media. Whilst more recent accounts have nuanced this view, drawing attention to developments in music and sculpture, literary contributions to the new American modernism have gone almost without assessment. Were there advances in literature comparable to those of Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, David Smith and John Cage? Drawing extensively on his unpublished writings, After the New Failure of Nerve reveals the poet Charles Olson to have been the keenest literary advocate of the new American avant-garde and one of the most astute observers of its conditions and possibilities. Paying special attention to unpublished notes, lectures, and correspondence, the thesis utilises Olson's early writings in order to examine the momentum given early postwar modernism by a potent contemporary reaction against abstract rationality, a reaction identified at the time as a 'New Failure of Nerve'. Born of recent disillusionment with 'scientific' Marxism and New Deal progressivism, the thesis demonstrates the several ways in which this 'New Failure of Nerve' fuelled vanguard American art from the middle of the Second World War to the end of the decade. It argues that the new critique of abstract rationality - which was also reflected in the contemporary American work of the Frankfurt School - defined the way American artists understood the function of postwar modernism, the posture of the postwar modernist artist, and the status of the postwar modernist artwork. This pivotal moment in the history of modernism was shaped, I contend, by a philosophical critique explored most ambitiously by an American poet.

This thesis offers a new policy history of the National Endowment for the Arts, the federal agency responsible for providing grants to artists and arts organisations in the United States. It focuses in particular on the development of conservative perspectives on federal arts funding from the 1950s to the 1980s, and hence, illuminates the broader evolution of conservative political power, especially its limits. The most familiar narrative holds that the Endowment found itself caught up in the Culture Wars of the late 1980s when Christian right groups objected to certain federal grants, particularly to Andres Serrano's Piss Christ and Robert Mapplethorpe's Self-Portrait with Whip. This thesis, however, uncovers the older origins of conservative opposition to state support for the arts, analyses conservative conceptions of art, and illuminates the limited federal role the right sought to secure in the arts in the post-war period. Numerous studies have analysed the meanings and origins of the Culture Wars, but until now, scholars had not examined conservative approaches to federal arts politics in a historical sense. Historians have generally been too interested in explaining change to the detriment of examining continuity, but this approach under-emphasises the long-term tensions that underlie seemingly sudden political eruptions. This work also offers a deep account of the conservative movement and the arts world, an area that has so far been almost completely ignored by scholars, even though a focus on marginalised players is essential to understanding the limits of conservatism. In a general sense then, this thesis evaluates the range and diversity of the conservative movement and illuminates the overall odyssey of the right in modern America. In so doing, it provides a new insight into the ways we periodise political history and also invites a broader view of how we understand politics itself.

[pt] A presente tese propõe a análise da produção intelectual do cubano José Martí, com foco em seus estudos sobre a sociedade norte-americana do século XIX, observada durante o período de mais de uma década (1880-1895). As fontes que formam o cerne do objeto de investigação são o conjunto de crônicas publicadas em diferentes periódicos da América Hispânica, comumente chamados de Escenas Norteamericanas. A investigação da base filosófica que constituiu a visão de mundo do autor; sua interpretação acerca do significado da modernidade, a realização do exercício de perspectiva, propiciado pela experiência do exílio; o diálogo com as correntes históricas do pensamento social norte-americano, sobretudo o abolicionismo, o pensamento reformador, o debate da forma da vida religiosa em interação com a vida política, o anarquismo e o socialismo, nos permite valorizar a compreensão da história dos Estados Unidos por ele investigada, de um modo que destacou a importância da análise da vida espiritual para uma consideração correta da história e da cultura desta sociedade. Desse modo, a literatura, a filosofia, o pensamento social e político foram os elementos essenciais e indissociáveis de seu exercício de interpretação histórica. / [en] The present thesis proposes the analysis of the intellectual production of the Cuban Jose Marti, focusing on his studies on the American society of the 19th century, observed during the period of more than a decade (1880-1895). The sources that form the core of the object of investigation are the set of chronicles published in different periodicals of Hispanic America, commonly called Escenas Norteamericanas. The investigation of the philosophical basis that constituted the world view of the author; his interpretation of the meaning of modernity, the realization of the exercise of perspective, propitiated by the experience of exile; the dialogue with the historical currents of American social thought, especially abolitionism, reformist thought, the debate of the form of religious life in interaction with political life, anarchism and socialism, allows us to value the understanding of the history of the United States by him investigated, in a way that emphasized the importance of the analysis of spiritual life for a correct consideration of the history and culture of this society. In this way, literature, philosophy, social and political thought were the essential and inseparable elements of his exercise of historical interpretation.

[pt] Este trabalho propõe uma interpretação alternativa da eleição de Donald Trump à presidência dos Estados Unidos, a partir de uma releitura do conceito de ultraimperialismo, de Karl Kautsky. Para esta releitura, o trabalho se apoia na literatura marxista sobre o imperialismo, nas contribuições teóricas de Antonio Gramsci e Robert Cox, e no conceito de Classe Capitalista Transnacional. É empreendia uma análise histórica do desenvolvimento do império estadunidense em sua dimensão doméstica – a emergência do bloco hegemônico em torno do New Deal – e externa, a expansão do modelo hegemônico à ordem mundial. A partir de uma análise histórica e ideacional, é observado o papel do conservadorismo e do neoliberalismo, dentro dos EUA, na formação do novo bloco que alcança supremacia mundial a partir dos anos 1980. Este bloco tem orientação globalista, ou seja, tem por objetivo a integração de todas as economias nacionais ao capitalismo global. Argumenta-se que o bloco é liderado por classes capitalistas transnacionais que empregam o poder estatal para avançar essa integração, enquanto a articulação entre conservadorismo e neoliberalismo legitima o processo. Neste contexto, o império estadunidense assume o papel de Estado líder em um cartel de países capitalistas avançados – o ultraimpério – promovendo integração desigual e mantendo relações de dependência. As contradições deste arranjo, somadas às contradições do bloco globalista, contribuíram para a ascensão de Donald Trump, que foi capaz de articular, eleitoralmente, um desafio à agenda globalista. Conclui-se argumentando que a permanência dessas contradições resultará em novos fenômenos como Trump, no futuro. / [en] This work proposes an alternative interpretation of Donald Trump’s election to the presidency of the United States, through a rereading of Karl Kautsky’s concept of ultra-imperialism. For this, the work is supported by the Marxist literature on imperialism, on Antonio Gramsci’s and Robert Cox s theoretical contributions, and on the concept of Transnational Capitalist Class. It undertakes a historical analysis of the development of the US empire in its domestic dimension – the emergence of a hegemonic bloc around the New Deal – and external, the expansion of the hegemonic model to the world order. It is observed, through a historical and ideational analysis, the role of conservatism and neoliberalism, inside the US, in the formation of the new bloc that achieves world supremacy from the 1980s onwards. This bloc has a globalist orientation, that is, its objective is to integrate all national economies to global capitalism. It is argued that the bloc is led by transnational capitalist classes that employ state power to advance this integration, while the articulation between conservatism and neoliberalism legitimates the process. In this context, the US empire assumes the role of leading state in a cartel of advanced capitalist countries – the ultra-empire – promoting uneven integration and the persistence of relations of dependency. The contradictions of this arrangement, added to the contradictions of the globalist bloc, contributed to the rise of Donald Trump, who was able to articulate, in the elections, a challenge to the globalist agenda. In the conclusion, it is argued that the permanence of these contradictions will result in new phenomena like Trump, in the future.

"The purpose of this paper is three-fold: to give a brief sketch of the life of James Daugherty and the development of his art; to summarize the contemporary criticism of his work as to his ability as an author-illustrator for children; and to assemble a bibliography of his contributions to art and literature. The portion concerned with critical analysis has been limited to those books both written and illustrated by Mr. Daugherty"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "August, 1955." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Advisor: Agnes Gregory, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 49-52).

No description available.

No description available.

No início da Guerra da Secessão (1861-1865), os Estados Unidos promoveram negociações internacionais que pretendiam transferir seus afrodescendentes, em diversas condições de escravidão e liberdade para diversos países independentes da América Latina e possessões coloniais no Caribe. Ainda que tais negociações não tenham resultado de fato na realocação de homens e mulheres afro-americanos, as trocas diplomáticas, bem como outras fontes documentais, revelaram interessantes debates sobre escravidão, raça, construção nacional e o trabalho dependente no pós-abolição, que fazem do tema uma espécie de microcosmo que abrange questões substanciais que marcaram as mudanças nos mundos do trabalho no século XIX. Os projetos de colonização, como então foram chamados, para população afroamericana foram propostos e negociados por Washington com os seguintes países e colônias abrangidos pelo presente trabalho: Brasil, Equador, atual Panamá (pertencente, à época, à atual Colômbia), Costa Rica, Nicarágua. Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Belize (Honduras Britânicas), Guiana Britânica, Suriname (colônia da Holanda), na ilha dinamarquesa de Santa Cruz, Haiti e Libéria. / In the early years of its Civil War, the United States Government proposed to resettle African- Americans throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Though these schemes did not ultimately come to fruition, the intentions of the United States and the responses of negotiating nations reflected broader debates on slavery, race, nation building and indenture labor in the post abolition era. These colonization projects, as they were then called, aimed to resettle African-Americans in countries such as Brazil, Ecuador, present-day Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, present-day Belize, British Guiana, Surinam, St. Croix Island, Haiti and Liberia.

La Guerre Froide domine l'histoire de la seconde moitié du vingtième siècle, et sa conclusion demeure source de débats aujourd'hui, le triomphalisme des conservateurs étant souvent remis en cause par les tensions avec la Russie. Au cœur du conflit se trouvait la perception pour les Américains d'une menace basée sur l'idéologie et la puissance militaire de l'Union soviétique. Mais cette « image de l'ennemi » resta fondée sur de nombreuses erreurs d'interprétation des données disponibles. En fait, l'étude des dernières années de la Guerre Froide révèle que cette image déformée des capacités et des motivations de l'ennemi a acquis des fonctions internes au paysage politique américain. Le débat public, souvent dominé par les personnalités anticommunistes, montre que la perception du conflit par les Américains dépendit longtemps de représentations ancrées dans l'imaginaire collectif. Or, l'arrivée au pouvoir de Mikhaïl Gorbatchev en 1985 va rapidement permettre de remettre en question ces représentations. Entre 1984 et 1989, la volonté de Ronald Reagan, puis de Mikhaïl Gorbatchev, d'apaiser les tensions à la source de la Guerre Froide, va donc signifier une déconstruction de l'image de l'ennemi et une ré-humanisation progressive des Soviétiques. En cinq ans, l'Union soviétique cessera d'être un « empire du mal » pour devenir « juste une autre grande puissance ». En étudiant cette évolution, on peut discerner l'origine et les fonctions de l'image de l'ennemi, et donc voir comment la perception des ennemis peut être influencée ou instrumentalisée. La fin de la Guerre Froide nous renseigne ainsi sur la construction de nos ennemis d'aujourd'hui. / The Cold War looms large over the history of the second half of the 20th century, and its conclusion remains a source of debates to this day, while renewed tensions with Russia may lead us to question the triumphalism of hawks after the collapse of the Soviet Union.At the heart of the conflict was the perception by Americans of a threat based on the ideology and the military power of the Soviet Union. But this « enemy image » was based on many faulty interpretations of the available data.In fact, the study of the last years of the Cold War reveals that this twisted image of the capabilities and intentions of the enemy had acquired internal functions of its own on the American political scene. The public debate, often dominated by anticommunist figures, shows that the perception of the conflict by Americans long rested on preconceptions deeply embedded in the collective imagination. However, the rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 would lead to a thaw in the Cold War : the enemy image was deconstructed and the Soviets progressively became more human in the eyes of Americans. In five years, the Soviet Union ceased being an « evil empire » to become « just another great power ». By studying this evolution, one can determine the origins and functions of the enemy image, et thus understand how the perception of enemies can be influenced or used. The end of the Cold War thus allows us to better understand the construction of today's enemies.