<p> This dissertation explores U.S.-Brazilian relations through the prism of naval diplomacy between 1893 and 1930. Broadly, this dissertation explains the growth of U.S. naval involvement in Brazil, emphasizing the motives of Brazilian and American policymakers, and the role of naval officers in strengthening bilateral relations. This study begins by examining the Brazilian Navy Revolt of 1893-94, contextualizing it within the formative years of the Brazilian Republic, while discussing U.S. naval intervention in the conflict. It then explores U.S.-Brazilian naval relations in the early twentieth century, explaining the growing association between the two countries&rsquo; navies after the turn of the century. That collaboration culminated in cooperation during World War I, and with the establishment of an American Navy Commission to teach at the Brazilian Naval War College. Finally, this dissertation explores the dynamics of the U.S. Navy Mission in Brazil during the first formative years after its establishment in 1922. Introducing naval diplomacy to the historiography of U.S.-South American relations illuminates the origins of American influence in Brazil, including the crucial role of Brazilians in pursuing closer ties, as well as the development of a U.S. policy focused on reducing European influence, promoting regional security, and increasing U.S. commercial power in the region.</p>

<p>When addressed with military strategy the first thought is to drift towards the big name battlefields: Shiloh, Perryville, Stones River, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga. Our obsession with tactics and outcomes clouds our minds to the social, cultural, and political factors that took place away from the front lines. Less appealing, but no less important to understanding the war as a whole, this study incorporates non-military factors to explain the shift of Confederate military strategy in the Western Theater. Southern citizens experienced a growth of military awareness, which greatly influenced the military policies of Richmond, and altered how Confederate generals waged war against Union armies. The geography of Mississippi and Tennessee, and the proximity of these states to Virginia, also forced Western generals to pursue aggressive military campaigns with less than ideal military resources. Finally, the emotions and personal aspirations of general officers in the Army of Tennessee, and the Western Theater as a whole, produced a culture of failure, which created disunion and instability in the Western command structure. Confederate generals pursued aggressive military campaigns due to a combination of social, cultural, political, and military factors.

<p> What explains why and how America fought the civil war? This thesis argues that industrial modernization can be a useful analytical tool for understanding the causes of the American Civil War. The argument is developed by analyzing the social, political, and military events of the era through the lens of industrialization. This study will show that the American Industrial Revolution lay at the core of the social, political, and military events that shaped this great conflict. Understanding the causes of human events is as critical as understanding their effects. By grasping the root causes of the war, we can better understand how and why it was fought. This analysis of American society, American politics, and the country's military establishment will provide the rich context needed to apprehend the reasons for the American Civil war beyond the dichotomy of slavery and economics.</p>

<p> The last four decades of research regarding the late prehistoric American Southwest has produced abundant evidence for violence, warfare and cannibalism among the Ancestral Puebloan peoples. Most archaeologists attribute this rise in violence and subsequent abandonment of the Four Corners region to degrading environmental conditions. While ecological factors surely contributed, it is hard to accept that this alone led to the extreme mutilation of hundreds of human remains found throughout the Pueblo territory. It is proposed that increasing social complexity along with new ritual practices resulted in intense and violent attacks throughout the Pueblo expanse.</p>

<p> This dissertation addresses how Victorian class hierarchy persisted on the frontier, and manifested in aspects of military life at Fort Laramie, Wyoming. Historians have argued that Victorian culture was omnipresent, but forts were located on the frontier, which was removed from the cultural core. While social status differences were a central aspect of Victorian culture, few studies have investigated how resilient class divisions were in differing landscapes. The U.S. western frontier was a landscape of conflict, and under the continual stress of potential violence, it is possible that Victorian social status differences weakened. While status differences in the military were primarily signaled through rank insignia and uniforms, this research focuses on subtle everyday inequalities, such as diet and pet dogs. Three independent lines of evidence from Fort Laramie, Wyoming (1849&ndash;1890) suggest that Victorian social status differences did persist despite the location. The Rustic Hotel (1876&ndash;1890), a private hotel at Fort Laramie, served standardized Victorian hotel dishes, which could be found in urban upper-class hotels. Within the military, the upper-class officers dined on the best cuts of beef, hunted prestige game birds, and supplemented their diet with sauger/walleye fish. Enlisted men consumed poorer cuts of beef, hunted smaller game mammals, and caught catfish. Officers also owned well-bred hunting dogs, which were integrated into the family. In contrast, a company of enlisted men frequently adopted a communal mongrel as a pet. This project increases our knowledge of the everyday life on the frontier and social relationships between officers and enlisted men in the U.S. Army. It also contributes to a larger understanding of Victorian culture class differences in frontier regions.</p>

<p> The American Expeditionary Force, sent to Siberia in 1918, conducted operations other than war. The rationale for sending the American Expeditionary Force to Siberia was vague, but Wilson&rsquo;s instructions were to be as neutral as possible. The AEF&rsquo;s objectives were relatively ambiguous and therefore the chances for success were minimal. Nevertheless, the AEF proved to be surprisingly adept at the diplomacy required to maintain neutrality. The commanders of the AEF demonstrated the tact and skill necessary to prevent dangerous situations from escalating out of control. The success of the AEF offers a unique opportunity to learn what ground forces can accomplish without actively engaging in war. The overall failure of the intervention also shows the importance of detailed objectives and exit strategy prior to the start of any military operations.</p><p>

After much debate during the war years over how best to respond to Nazi criminality, the United States embarked on an ambitious postwar trial program in occupied Germany, which consisted of three distinct trial sets: the International Military Trial at Nuremburg, the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, and military trials held at the former concentration camp at Dachau. Within the Dachau military tribunal programme, were the concentration camp trials in which personnel from the Dachau, Mauthausen, Buchenwald, Flossenbürg, and Dora-Mittelbau concentration camps were arraigned. These concentration camp trials at Dachau represented the principal attempt by the United States to punish Nazi crimes committed at the concentration camps liberated by the Americans. The prosecutors at Dachau tried 1,045 defendants accused of committing violations of the 'laws of war' as understood through 'customary' international and American military practice. The strain of using traditional military law to prosecute the unprecedented crimes in the Nazi concentration camps was exposed throughout the trials. To meet this challenge, the Dachau concentration camp courts included an inventive legal concept: the use of a 'criminal-conspiracy' charge-in effect arraigning defendants for participating the 'common design' of the concentration camp, 'a criminal organization'. American lawmakers had spent a good deal of time focused on the problem of how to begin the trials (What charges? What courts? Which defendants?) and very little time planning for the aftermath of the trials. Thus, by 1947 and 1948, in the face of growing tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, the major problem with the Dachau trials was revealed -the lack of long term plans for the appellate process for those convicted. After two scandals that captured the press and the public's attention, the United States Congress held two official investigations of the entire Dachau tribunal programme. Although the resulting reviews, while critical of the Army's clemency process, were largely positive about the trials themselves, the Dachau trials faded from public memory.