This dissertation examines a difficult subject in a difficult period: activism by indígenas before, during, and after la violencia (1978-1983), the most brutal years of Guatemala's 36-year civil war. It was a time of increasing oppositional politics, and in that context, indígenas from different regions began discussions and organizing focused on ethnic and class identities, indigenous culture, justice, and state violence. This study analyzes connections among activists from across the highlands and the complex and evolving ways in which they expressed demands in the name of the pueblo indígena. Organizing was diverse: indígenas struggled for economic and cultural rights, challenged the state, even fought for revolution, in markedly different ways, some articulated around ideas of race and ethnic identity, others in terms of class struggle. In the context of armed insurgency in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, these class- and race-based tendencies among indígenas have been interpreted as diametrically opposed, even revolutionary and counter-revolutionary. I focus instead on links that existed among different forms of organizing. The dissertation documents how indigenous students and intellectuals, catechists, campesino organizers, and revolutionaries shaped, challenged, and reinforced each other's struggles. State violence had profound and contradictory effects on indigenous organizing: initially state repression had a mobilizing and radicalizing effect on young indígenas and was a catalyst in the formation of broadening pan-Indian identity. As extreme terror reached the level of genocide, however, it had its intended effect, the demobilization of political opposition. The experiences of extreme state terror directed specifically against the indigenous population significantly altered relationships among indigenous activists, and an "indigenous" struggle became divorced from broader opposition movements. La violencia continues to shape how indígenas and Guatemalan society as a whole remember the past and how they mobilize, or not, in the present. Despite a distancing on the part of many Mayas from a history of activism, this study shows that Mayas were not bystanders in the transformations that preceded and accompanied the civil war. Activism by indígenas helped shape that war; that war shaped indigenous activism.

This dissertation examines the claims that Nikolai Bukharin was an inconsistent Marxist theoretician, at times un-Marxist in his thinking who radically altered his political philosophy to justify his support for such different policies as War Communism and the New Economic Policy. It also investigates the validity of the accepted wisdom that Bukharin represented a liberal alternative to Stalin and Stalinism within Bolshevism and that, by 1925, he had moved to the Right of the Party. This study begins by examining the conflicting visions of the state and the evolutionary and revolutionary strains within Marxism. It then studies the works of those Marxist thinkers, of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, whose work on the state, revolution and the transition to socialism significantly influenced Bukharins work. Finally, it subjects Bukharins major theoretical works on imperialism, revolution and the role of the state in the transition to socialism, between 1915-1925, to an in-depth analysis to determine the validity of the claims made about Bukharin and his works. While one can still argue that Bukharin may have acted differently from Stalin once in power, this dissertation demonstrates that Bukharin was consistent in his theoretical work on the revolution and the transition to socialism. This study also conclusively demonstrates that Bukharin was located within the heart of both Marxism and Bolshevism and did not move to the Right during the NEP. It clearly shows that Bukharins support for War Communism and the NEP flowed directly from his original synthesis of the revolutionary and evolutionary strains within Marxism, and the need for a powerful, proletarian state, The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, that would manage the socialization of antagonistic petit-bourgeois elements into socialism, build socialism economically, and do whatever was necessary to protect the Revolution from its internal and external enemies. Thus, in reality, Bukharin, the liberal alternative, provided the philosophical foundation and justification for the use of unlimited state power, which in the hands of Stalin led to the Revolution from Above and from this perspective one can locate Bukharin as the philosophical interregnum between Lenin and Stalin.

This dissertation examines the political, intellectual, and cultural significance of France's provincial newspaper press, called affiches, published between 1750-1789. Combining the histories of the press, provincial life, and the public sphere, this dissertation explores the ways in which the affiches became an indispensable part of local economic, cultural, and intellectual life while at the same time articulated a world view that was antithetical to the tenets of monarchical absolutism. The first part of the dissertation focuses on the origins, form and contents of the provincial press. Faced with the twin obstacles of laws governing censorship and privilege, provincial newspapers eschewed political content and focused instead on forging networks of commerce: both economic exchange and the exchange of ideas. From this apparently nonpolitical and nonideological space the provincial papers were able to launch a systematic critique of absolutist society. The papers created a space where a community of individuals could come together outside their corporate existence and participate as equals. In the pages of the local papers, absolutist distinctions based on corps, état, and ordre had no resonance. The second part of the dissertation focuses in on the port city of Bordeaux and its two local papers. Like other provincial papers in France, Bordeaux's papers were collective endeavors. Yet, the community that was fashioned in the pages of the Bordelais papers was necessarily an imagined community. It was not long, however, before the imagined community was transformed into an actual community. In 1784, the founders and editors of the Journal de Guienne formed a sister-organization, the Musée de Bordeaux. The musée provided the institutional base for many of the impulses encouraged by the local papers. It was open, socially mixed, and provided a space where members could come together on an equal footing to discuss and debate the issues of the day while practicing the art of self-governance. The ideals of equality and commerce - first articulated in the Bordelais newspapers and musée - became for a brief moment in time the guiding principles of the Revolution.

At midday on June 25, 1876, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer split his Seventh Cavalry Regiment into three elements and attacked an enormous village of hostile Indians situated along the Little Bighorn River in modern-day Montana. Custer and his immediate command of five troops, a total of 225 men, did not survive the fight. Immediately following the battle, officers-Reno, Benteen, Brisbin, Terry, Gibbon-began to recreate the history of the campaign's recent events in an effort to explain the disaster and clear themselves of responsibility. Their self-serving omission of facts and their convenient "remembrance" of things that had not happened fully blamed Custer for the calamity and heavily influenced future historical assessments of the battle. Numerous explanations for the disaster have surfaced over the years. Driven by vain personal motives, Custer allegedly disobeyed General Terry's orders by taking a direct route to the Indian village and then rushing his exhausted men into battle without waiting for Gibbon's support. He did not conduct a thorough reconnaissance and ignored the warnings of his scouts. He violated a basic maxim of war by splitting his force in the face of the enemy, and his midday attack destroyed any hopes for surprise. Finally, Custer's actions displayed an overall ineptness at fighting Indians. Some of the assessments hold truths, but they must be placed in the context of what Custer knew at the time and expected to encounter. In fact, given his prior experiences and information at hand, Custer correctly configured his forces and acted appropriately by attacking the hostile village. His forces, however, were not enough to overcome the combination of peculiar circumstances, some of his own creation, that opposed them.

This thesis is concerned with André Tardieu, a French politician who had an outstanding career as a journalist and a politician. After the retirement of Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré in 1929, it seemed like Tardieu would be the natural choice as his successor. He was the only leader on the Right. Tardieu formed his first cabinet in November 1929 and proposed an ambitious program for public works projects to improve the countrys infrastructure. Despite solid funding, Tardieus proposal never passed the Chamber of Deputies and his ministry fell in December 1930. The purpose of this thesis is to find the reasons for Tardieus failure as head of government. It has usually been argued that Tardieu was either a reactionary who could never get the support of the Left or that he became a victim of the institutions of the Third Republic. These viewpoints are not satisfactory. The third and fourth chapter of this work demonstrate that Tardieu did have a majority in the Chamber and that his fall can be attributed to his personality and his behavior during the earlier years of his political career, during which he made many enemies. In order to prove this point, the voting patterns of the deputies are closely examined in a table, which includes votes of confidence after ministerial declarations as well as votes relating to Tardieus ambitious economic program. The necessity of such a program was universally accepted and is illustrated through the assessment of the economic situation after the First World War in chapter 2.

College professors in the nineteenth-century South lavished a great deal of attention on the issues of slavery and constitutionalism, and they paid careful attention to the connections between these issues and the idea of natural rights. In this dissertation I offer an analysis of the lives and writings of three generations of college professors in nineteenth-century Virginia, focusing especially on St. George Tucker and his descendants. As a contemporary of Thomas Jefferson and as a delegate to the Annapolis convention, Tucker can rightly be considered as one of the founding fathers. But he is best known for inaugurating the academic discourse on the issues of slavery and constitutionalism in his capacity as professor of law at the College of William and Mary. His sons, Henry and Beverley Tucker, and his grandson John Randolph Tucker kept this academic tradition alive. Members of the Tucker family continuously espoused a modern theory of natural rights based upon a contractual understanding of how people come to exist in society. By the 1850s, however, some professors such as George Frederick Holmes had abandoned the philosophy of modern natural rights in favor of a re-articulation of classic or ancient natural right: a non-contractual conception of the right to rule. This recovery made possible the positive good defense of slavery, but it put a strain upon the orthodox theory of constitutional interpretation that had been at the center of Virginian political thought. This dissertation examines how the Tuckers and others strove to keep the philosophy of the founding generation alive throughout the various political upheavals of the nineteenth century.

Early attempts at strategic bombing led theorist to reason that it could offer a revolutionary new means of winning wars. Airpower visionaries such as Guilio Douhet, Hugh Trenchard, and Billy Mitchell advocated a Sherman - like strategy of attrition in which air strikes on the enemys vital economic centers would destroy his war making capability and crush his will to resist. In the inner war period the Air Corps Tactical School, occupied with formulating a strategic air doctrine, refined that idea, which was the central concept underlying AWPD-1, the basic statement governing strategic bombing elaborated by the Air War Plans Division of the War Department in mid 1941. AWPD-1 identified the key German economic targets as electric power generation, transportation nodes, and the petroleum industry. American planners believed that effective attacks on those targets demanded Daylight Precision Bombing raids. An intense six-month bombing campaign, they thought, might defeat Germany without the need of a ground invasion of Europe. After the United States entered the war and as the Anglo American invasion of North Africa was under way, British and American leaders agreed to execute an around the clock Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO) to bring about the progressive destruction of the German military, industrial, and economic system. Strategic bombing reached new levels of power and achievement during the war. The CBO undermined German war production, helped achieve air superiority, and paved the way for the Allied land invasion. Concentrated attacks on German aircraft plants, transportation centers, and oil facilities paid particularly valuable dividends. But strategic bombing failed to destroy enemy morale and it did not render a ground war unnecessary, as the visionaries had predicted, in part because of repeated changes in target priorities and the diversion of bombers to missions elsewhere, particularly those in connection with the Normandy invasion

This thesis closely examines the American and South Vietnamese pacification efforts in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. The perspectives of the United States military and civilian organizations that supported the war effort, the South Vietnamese government, and the Viet Cong insurgents are discussed in detail. This includes an analysis of military strategy, theory, and practice of the combatants in the Vietnam War in order to gain an understanding of the reasoning behind decision-making policies of military leaders on both sides of the war. A dissection of the Viet Cong insurgency, from the origins of insurgent political movements leading to the formation of the Viet Cong forces and the aggressive application of these beliefs throughout the war, provides an understanding of the motivations and goals of the foe that the Allies faced. The basic strategy of the North Vietnamese Army sheds light on the reasoning behind monumental decisions regarding the military treatment of South Vietnam. A detailed analysis of the relationship between The United States and the Government of South Vietnam provides the context surrounding the trials experienced by the Allies in the battlefield throughout the countryside of Vietnam. A presentation of basic military tactics and beliefs embraced by The United States military will focus on questions of how and why the war progressed in the manner it did between the two enemy forces. A discussion of the motivations of each side in the war will lead to a greater insight of why the Vietnam War occurred, and how the outcome affected U.S. military strategy.

American involvement in Panama dates back to 1903 when the United States helped bring independence to the Republic and soon after began construction of the Panama Canal. As the guarantor of Panamanian sovereignty, the U.S in the ensuing decades contributed to a non-democratic environment in Panama by supporting a series of dictators who promised stability in the region. The U.S. National Security policy just before Operation JUST CAUSE finally acknowledged the brutality of the Panamanian dictator, Manuel Noriega, forcing Washington to attempt numerous unsuccessful diplomatic maneuvers in an effort to avoid military intervention. Once combat operations commenced, the justification, necessity and amount of force committed in Panama came under critical review by some lawmakers and the public. However, military leaders task organized U.S. forces against Panamanian units and significant key locations in accordance with Army doctrinal correlation of forces and means for a deliberate attack. A comprehensive assessment of force ratios and insights on conduct during JUST CAUSE displays the successful application of a measured military force in adherence with strict rules of engagement. History bound the United States with Panama ultimately forcing military intervention in order to restore democracy. The response, executed with measured force and conducted appropriately, resulted in all of the National Security objectives met and ensured democracy returned to the Republic of Panama and its people. The 1989 military intervention in Panama was a just cause.

The central goal of this thesis is to explore several popular "talking points" that were believed to relate to high crime rates amongst African American male youth. I argue that in many instances, issues relating to employment, education, and family structure can operate in unison to greatly increase the likelihood that young black men would take part in criminal activity. The issues discussed within this thesis relate closely to those discussed earlier in Thomas Sugrue's pivotal work The Origins of the Urban Crisis. This thesis will focus on the period from 1980 through to 1999 to discuss how issues relating to crime and poverty persisted throughout urban areas within the United States. I have assembled a variety of primary and secondary sources from several different disciplines to properly develop my argument related to the various socio-economic issues surrounding the African American community during this period.