Historians have long recognized the symbiotic relationship between learned culture, urban life and Iberian expansion in the creation of “Latin” America out of the ruins of pre-Columbian polities, a process described most famously by Ángel Rama in his account of the “lettered city” (ciudad letrada). This dissertation argues that this was part of a larger global process in Latin America, Iberian Asia, Spanish North Africa, British North America and Europe. It is thus a study of the “global lettered city,” known to contemporaries as the “republic of letters,” from its rapid expansion in the sixteenth century to its reordering in the Enlightenment and the Age of Revolutions with a particular focus on the function of its key scholarly-literary practice, classicizing rhetoric and oratory as revived by renaissance humanists. This dissertation is divided into five chapters. In Chapter 1, I argue that renaissance humanism and classical rhetoric played a pivotal role in shaping and diffusing the political ideology of the global Spanish Monarchy. As the centerpieces of multisensory Baroque rituals regularly celebrated in urban centers, such as Mexico City, Lima, and Manila, classicizing orations and sermons bolstered the Spanish Monarchy through appeals to Greco-Roman imperial models and Christian humanist ideas of virtue. In the same vein, in Chapter Two, I argue that classical rhetoric was an instrument of global spiritual conquest on the Jesuit route from Rome to Japan. This dissertation then treats some less well-known applications of humanism and the classical rhetorical tradition, cultural practices that also served to undermine or even directly oppose European imperial ambitions. In Chapter 3, I examine the role of late-humanist eloquence and erudition in the expression of a local “Mexican” identity. In Chapter 4, I show that late-humanism served to build community in Benjamin Franklin’s quarter of the “global lettered city.” Finally, in Chapter 5, I examine the role of post-humanist classicizing rhetoric in the articulation of radical political and social ideas in Age of Revolutions. In preparing this global history, I have examined primary sources in thirteen countries. / History

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This thesis divides Taiwan's impact on the Bush administration's Mainland China policy into three stages. The first period was from January 1989, when George Bush entered the White House, to June 3, when the Tiananmen Massacre took place in Beijing. The second period was from June 1989 to July 1991. The third period was from July 1991 to the end of 1992. Through examining the Bush administration's Mainland China policy, this thesis argues that Taiwan's impact on the administration's China policy evolved a tract from unimportant to important in the years between 1989 and 1992. It further argues that Taiwan has become an independent factor, whose China policy was not under the control of the United States. Sometimes it undermined American Mainland China policy.

This paper discusses the Romaji Movement and its role in the reform of the Japanese written language during the Allied Occupation of Japan (1945-1952). Past analyses concerning the Romaji Movement have suggested that romanization failed due to conspiracies against it and have neglected to consider other alternatives being pursued by the Japanese government. This paper will take a closer look at the Americans who supported romanization, their motivations for doing so, and the development of SCAP policy towards language reform. Since simplification, not romanization, was the preferred objective of both the American and the Japanese governments, this paper goes on to examine alternative methods to simplification which, in the end, proved to be highly successful.

Considering the prominent role India has played in the United Nations since independence, it is important to remember that its involvement in international organizations predates the advent of the U.N. by over 25 years. An original signatory to the Treaty of Versailles (1919), India became a founding member of the League of Nations. As a non-sovereign part of the British Empire and the League's only colonial member, however, India faced a set of unique problems in its interaction with the League; its role was, as a result, both complex and anomalous. / This dissertation analyzes India's membership of the League from its entry in 1919 to the outbreak of the Second World War. In addition to examining changes in India's status in the British Empire during the First World War and detailing its entry into the League at the Paris Peace Conference, the work surveys the various influences on India's League policy. The work also explores the background of India's League delegates. Although appointed by the British Government of India and traditionally seen, therefore, as mere collusionists, most were actually moderate nationalists operating outside the Gandhi-Nehru fold. They saw collaboration with the British in India's League affairs, despite obvious restrictions, as beneficial to India in developing its international persona. / Despite clear limitations, India's role in the League was significant. Membership of the League offered Indians the opportunity of dispelling Eurocentric misperceptions about India and of showing that Indians were fully capable of grappling with complex global issues. India's involvement in League work, particularly in the areas of opium and slavery suppression, public health, and intellectual cooperation, was of demonstrable benefit to the country as a whole. India's League membership also provided an initial testing ground for its, and Pakistan's, later membership in the United Nations, and as a training ground for a future cadre of Indian and Pakistani diplomats. Finally, India's presence at Geneva helped secure for it an important status in the international system, giving it, and Pakistan, a comparative advantage over other newly independent countries in the post-Second World War period. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-07, Section: A, page: 2105. / Major Professor: Bawa Satinder Singh. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

This study attempts to explain Taiwan's democratic transition in the mid-1980s by looking at its macro historical-developmental processes and micro shifts in mass democratic values and voting behavior. / It is found that democratization has been delayed but not denied as it has remained one of the fundamental goals in Taiwan's postwar development. Democracy was postponed in the interest of achieving political stability in the 1950s and economic growth in the 1960s. However, by the late 1970s tangible progress towards the goals of democratization had become indispensable for both continued sociopolitical stability and economic growth. / Two macro trends of liberalizing changes associated with socioeconomic development are identified, which converged and resulted in Taiwan's democratic transition in the mid-1980s. Top-down liberalization as Taiwanization was introduced by the ruling KMT to revitalize the political system beginning in the early 1970s. Paralleling postwar socioeconomic development, a bottom-up democratizing movement emerged along with the extension of elections and finally gave rise to an organized opposition. When the first meaningful opposition party was formed, Taiwan experienced a democratic transition with the lifting of martial law and the legitimizing of opposition parties in the mid-1980s. / Findings at the micro level show an emerging democratic sub-culture characterizing Taiwan's changing political culture. Shifts in democratic values increased one's likelihood of opposition voting. Education has been identified as the most important predictor for democratic values and other civic orientations. In turn, an individual's opposition voting is mainly a product of democratic values. In addition ethnicity, education, and political efficacy are shown to have significant effects on voting for the opposition. / In sum, Taiwan's socioeconomic development provided the necessary macro trends that encouraged democratic development. Education is found to be the major link between socioeconomic change and democratization, while the shift in democratic values was the dynamics. As a result, a democratic value cleavage emerged as the basis of opposition politics. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-07, Section: A, page: 2513. / Major Professor: Scott C. Flanagan. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.