This research focuses on the 'feasts of Moors and Christians' (fiestas de moros y cristianos) of Valor, a mountain community of the Alpujarra region, in the former Moorish kingdom of Granada. The tradition of 'Moors and Christians' performances is a stock item of the Spanish expressive culture and a model for local identity, which is so deeply rooted that it fully reflects the social, economic and even political life of the community. Each year in Valor, the 'Moors and Christians' reenact the Reconquest of Spain and the 'Morisco revolution' of 1568. The performance functions as a local myth of origin, a product of a literate bricolage, built with the odds and ends of effective history. It commemorates various events, widely distant in time, but all related to times of conflict. Following the local point of view and my own experience as a Christian performer in Valor, I look at the 'Moors and Christians' as the foremost manifestation of local culture. Focusing on the interplay between the way conflict is being represented in the performance and its real developments in the community and its region, I analyse the relation between history and its representation in folklore for the two key periods of societal crisis: the Spanish Civil War (1936) and the Morisco revolt (1568) / acase@tulane.edu

This review of Moscow dispatches (1921--1934) is based on a reading of the writings of Walter Duranty of the New York Times, William Henry Chamberlin of the Christian Science Monitor, and Louis Fischer of the Nation. Duranty was an experienced correspondent who had expressed anti-Soviet views before entering Russia to report on American famine relief. Chamberlin and Fischer, with little journalistic experience, were enthusiastic in their support for Bolshevism. None of the three knew Russian, and all three were unfamiliar with the Soviet political system. Foreign press coverage of a religious trial in 1923 resulted in the expulsion or departure of all western journalists except Duranty, Chamberlin and Fischer. Their editors in America were more concerned with domestic reports than Moscow dispatches, except for the salient issue of censorship. The objective of this study is evaluate the journalists' attitudes, under censorship pressures, in a totalitarian state. A study is made of their reports of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky; the dispatches which they wrote during a series of Soviet show trials; and their relations with the Soviet secret police. The journalists' private lives, personal interests and religious beliefs are relevant. Their attitudes toward Stalin's Five-Year Plan, toward a second famine which the Soviets concealed, and concerning the issue of United States recognition of Soviet Russia are explored. With recognition in 1933, Moscow dispatches lost their exclusivity. In 1934 Chamberlin and Duranty departed; Fischer followed later. Newly-accessible Soviet archives thus far have yielded no trace of these Moscow journalists. The challenge in this dissertation is to measure, through a reading of their Moscow dispatches, the correspondents' views of the regime / acase@tulane.edu

The epochs of Indian History have been determined from time to time by the appearance of foreign influences. Of immeasurable significance for India was the coming of the Europeans, for it eventually transformed the political destiny of the country. Inevitably, France, one of the five great European maritime powers of the time, had been vitally involved in this historic process. Yet, though there exists a cornucopia of material on French commercial history in the East Indies and on the various military and commercial phases of the Anglo-French rivalry in India, no one has so far undertaken to study the true character of the French presence in India from 1763 to 1783, within the setting of French global policy after the Seven Years' War. This is what the present study has endeavored to do According to conventional wisdom, and even scholarly opinion, the French were imperialistic in India. Yet a review of the French government's policy from 1763 to 1783 shows that, on the contrary, the French were, with remarkable consistency, non-expansionist in India. The Indian policy of the French government constituted only one part of its wider strategy to unseat British predominance throughout the world, and to retrieve France's position as a first-rank Power in Europe. The French government schemed to attack the founts of British power in India and in North America, not to succeed to British domination in these regions, but to liberate them In India, the French through a policy of diplomatic intrigue, labored to expel their rivals from the country. The story of the French presence in India post-1763 is largely the story of a desperate struggle by Frenchmen to block the extension of British imperialism in the region. The ultimate end was to restore freedom and liberty on the Indian soil. The French government may have aspired to establish in India a network of trade but not an empire of conquest. The prevailing belief that the French conflict with the English in India was primarily a conflict for an 'Indian Empire' may now be revealed for what it always was: a myth / acase@tulane.edu

It is ironic that while the nineteenth-century middle class was so concerned with respectability and security, their lives were fraught with uncertainty and change. For the majority of middle-class Victorians, the delicate balance between inadequate incomes and the cost of living precluded any significant investment for the future. The shift in wealth away from land toward earned income meant that family finances were much more precarious than in the past. If the breadwinner died, so did the family's income. The historical view of widows has been narrowly skewed by a focus on the relatively small number of wealthy upper middle-class families; the average middle-class income, including the professional 'middle' group and the lower middle-class composed of clerks and small shopkeepers, was more modest by far than is often assumed. When a modest income was combined with the high costs of living demanded by middle-class status, the majority of middle-class widows were left with inadequate inheritances By the 1880s, significant changes had begun to help widows, but for most of the nineteenth century finances were a serious problem, the family and kin network was unreliable and often selfish, community support through charity was inadequate and self-serving, and there was no official governmental policy toward widows and orphans. The ones who were able to construct multiple strategies, who were able to find piecemeal jobs and combine this with appeals to family and charities, were the women who managed to survive. Perhaps the image we have of middle-class domesticity was something that was constantly aspired to, achieved only with unremitting struggle, and retained precariously / acase@tulane.edu

A sample of 1227 Spanish wills dating from fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth century Madrid and Seville is the basis for an in-depth exploration of the connection between individual action, identity and grave location. Each will is a repository of information concerning the will (intent) and prospective actions of one individual. The field of action in which personal will operates in my study centers on the necessity of finding a gravesite--an endeavor that is highly relevant to archaeological interests. Real-world descriptions in the wills of where graves are and how they may be identified, or not, with the bodies of the deceased and with the remembrance of their souls, highlight the sharp distinction between archaeologist's and testator's concepts of space and grave location The distinction is rooted in the testator's construct of personal identity, associated with the placement of his or her grave and the artifacts used to indicate the allegiances of body and soul in death, as in life. Such associations are lacking in the archaeological view of grave location and the identification of human remains, in part because we do not normally have access to documentary sources such as the wills to tell us otherwise. Yet, my study shows that identity is the source of all human action in the world. It is translated into physical space and time by the exercise of individual will. I use examples taken from the wills to illustrate some of the ways in which the personal connection between action and identity impinges on all material evidence, both positive and negative, that may be unearthed in archaeological excavation of grave sites / acase@tulane.edu

In the years 1763--83, Bourbon Spain experienced an unprecedented number of important rebellions throughout the American realms of its empire---from New Orleans to modern day Equador, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. No subsequent rebellion even approached the significance of these movements until the independence era began with the monarchic crisis of 1808. The dissertation examines the paradox of how Spain, a relatively weak, imperial power maintained a colonial rule that would endure for another thirty to forty years in the same period that the stronger powers of Britain and France lost their smaller American empires. The dissertation argues that the Spanish Crown's inner strength drew from two sources. First, the Crown demonstrated flexibility in adapting to a number of different, rebellious situations. Second, the majority of the Crown's subjects supported the Crown as a legitimate source of power and authority both out of conviction and self-interest. The dissertation draws on the correspondence of leading colonial officials, trial records and military service records. Using both discourse theory and statistical analysis, it examines the actions of the Crown and American subjects with regard to the use of the military, the Church, penal justice and royal patronage The dissertation brings a new perspective to two important fields of Latin American historiography---colonial administration and colonial rebellion. By examining the problem of responding to crisis, it provides an alternative to the traditional understanding of Bourbon administration guided by reform policies and political theory to the near exclusion of local, political concerns. To the still growing historiography of colonial rebellion, the dissertation adds a royalist perspective that helps to understand the inner weaknesses and strengths of these movements. Finally, the empire-wide analysis leads to a fuller appreciation both of the consistencies and inconsistencies of Spanish imperial rule and of the similarities and differences of regional, colonial societies / acase@tulane.edu

The Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED), the core of the government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), saw building socialism as its fundamental task. This dissertation elucidates the means by which the regime constructed 'socialism' and evaluates both the effects and the effectiveness of the procedure, using the city of Eisenhuttenstadt as a prism The city was founded in 1950. It provided a tabula rasa, upon which the policies and practices of the SED and the GDR could be engraved and exhibited. It was not 'average,' but representative. Stalinstadt, as the city was known from 1953 to 1961, is instructive as a model for what socialist life actually was in the German Democratic Republic. What happened in Eisenhuttenstadt happened in other cities across the GDR; policies affecting the lives of Stalinstadt's citizens likewise affected East Germans everywhere The official historiography suggests that a new and better type of community was created in Stalinstadt. The collective memory and pride of the residents and builders of the city in their community reinforces the image. Recent studies of the city in all fields, however, have uncovered discordant notes and revealed many of the claims regarding the city as partial truths at best. Why and to what extent Stalinstadt failed to meet the expectations of its founders is one of the central questions of this dissertation By using the extensive records of the SED and the city administration, it evaluates success against the standards they set for themselves. Because the city was a social experiment in which external, historical factors were minimized, the effects of government policy are more clearly distinguishable in Stalinstadt. It may be true that Stalinstadt eventually came to resemble most other cities in East Germany, but it can also be said that most other cities in the GDR came in many ways to resemble Stalinstadt. By examining the city and asking big questions of a small place, this history will contribute to a clearer understanding of life in East Germany / acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation argues that Elizabethan and Jacobean women participated in the political process despite the fact that women seldom held formal political offices. Women entered the political sphere by serving as political patrons, brokers, and clients, as well as by rebelling and protesting against the crown Elizabethan and Jacobean women functioned as political patronage brokers at court by procuring honors, titles, leases, annuities and employment for their clients. Women also garnered university positions and ecclesiastical posts for those in their patronage networks. Noble and gentlewomen built their patronage networks by arranging marriage alliances for their children. In addition to this, elite women managed to enrich themselves by petitioning the monarchs and their ministers. Elite women gained patronage for their clients and themselves through skillful deployment of language in their political petitions Women's political involvement was not limited to patronage. Noblewomen acted politically on a seditious level when they aided their male relatives in the only full-scale rebellion of the period, the Northern Rising of 1569. Non-elite women also joined in political uprisings by leading protests over communal and religious rights Women from a variety of socio-economic groups challenged the legitimacy of the government by questioning the sexual honesty of royal women. Women, whose worth was often judged by their own chastity, and who were expected to act as the moral custodians of female morality, were especially attuned to the sexual honesty of other women. Women chose to attack the legitimacy of both Elizabeth I and James I by bringing the sexual conduct of their mothers (Anne Boleyn and Mary, Queen of Scotland, respectively) into disrepute. Women also attempted to discredit the rule of Queen Elizabeth by accusing the queen of illicit behavior. Women's political speech indicates not only their widespread interest in politics, but also their belief that they had a right to speak out against the government when circumstances warranted it By establishing that women acted as political patrons and brokers, rebelled against the crown, criticized the government, and took part in political riots, this dissertation demonstrates that women from all ranks became involved in the world of Elizabethan and Jacobean politics / acase@tulane.edu

The history of New Spain in the early eighteenth century has been relatively ignored. This thesis is directed toward filling this lacuna by focusing on the viceregal court and politics of the tenth duke of Alburquerque (1702--1710). The central conflicts among the viceroy, his creatures , the power elites, and the crown that encompassed traditional privileges, personal interests, and reform initiatives, form the focus of this thesis. Through prosopography I unravel the social networks intrinsic to the politics at the viceregal court I posit that the crown during the War of the Spanish Succession (1700--1715) had already taken on colonial oligarchies and corporations in order to tighten control over New Spain. Processes of social disciplining as described by Max Weber and Gerhard Oestreich were clearly at play in Mexico Alburquerque, chosen by the Bourbons for political motives, resisted these tendencies underway. He allied with the local merchants in derailing the mercantile policies and joined the oligarchy of the city of Puebla to rebuff the royal superintendent's levy of taxes. Together with the Dominican Order, the viceroy also opposed monarchic policies geared toward secularization in Oaxaca As long as his transatlantic ties to grandees and ministers in Spain lent powerful support, the viceroy could pursue his politics forcefully. But when his allies' power crumbled, the hostile clique at the Madrid court took revenge. By castigating the duke with an extraordinary fine, the Bourbon politicians also sent a warning to the viceregal successors to cease from drastically flaunting royal directives The Mexican subcourt in this period still fulfilled a decisive role in agglutinating the colonial social networks. With nearly all of the royal institutions located in the palace, the viceroy and power elites aligned easily and negotiated their political agenda. Only during the mid eighteenth-century, the Mexican institutions began to 'move out of court' in favor of a more separate and disciplined administration. By rescinding the creole elites' influence over the Mexican court, the crown contributed to their alienation, casting the foundations for Mexico's independence / acase@tulane.edu

By any standards, the evolution of the European Union has been dramatic. Born in the devastation of the immediate post-war years, it brought together countries which had faced each other in conflict only a few years earlier. Predictably, the political rationale for its establishment in 1958 was peace, but the key to achieving this goal was to be economic growth. Economic growth was expected to increase the absolute wealth of member states, as well as improve the relative economic performance of poorer regions. / This latter view is consistent with neoclassical economic theories of regional integration which predict a convergence of wealth levels as integration proceeds. Issues of convergence and divergence are particularly significant for economic communities, as it has been demonstrated that such organizations are especially vulnerable to political tensions which result from uneven distributions of wealth. / Given the importance of wealth disparities for the integration process, this study traces their development over a thirty year period. It also assesses whether such economic trends have influenced public support for the European Union. / The results of the analysis indicate that economic convergence has occurred within the European Union since its inception. The original members became more alike economically, and three of the EU's four poorest members moved closer to this core group. It was also discovered that public evaluations of the EU are shaped by economic conditions. However, the most significant indicator of public support for the European Union was found to be the length of a country's membership in that organization. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-08, Section: A, page: 3289. / Major Professor: Dale L. Smith. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.