This study intends to examine the relationship between popular conceptions of modernity and Republican ideology during the Second Empire, 1852-1870. With the advent of the industrial revolution in France, scientific knowledge came to be equated with notions of progress and innovation, leading intellectual elites to design philosophical and social systems predicated upon the authority of scientific analysis and objectivity. Influenced by the intellectual currents under the Second Empire, a new generation of Republican political theorists incorporated notions of science into their ideological outlook, ultimately engendering a moderate brand of Republicanism which played a significant role in the founding of the Third Republic after 1870. The efforts of intellectuals and Republican elites formulated a social program which utilized popular conceptions of science and progress to promote democratic and secular values, as well as discourage political violence. In defining their vision of modern society, the jeunes républicains consciously created an ideological system that comported with the hegemonic ambitions and social outlook of the new French bourgeoisie coming of age under the Second Empire. Thus, the exaltation of science, industry, and progress proffered by intellectuals and moderate Republican theorists constituted an affirmation of urban bourgeois values, with the subsequent social visions derived from such considerations reflecting and legitimizing, in part, these values and principles. In evaluating the conflicts and dilemmas which faced Republicans under the Second Empire, this study seeks to reveal the importance of the imperial period in shaping the ideological outlook of the Third Republic. Offering a comprehensive view of modern society based upon popular notions of science and progress, Republican elites were able to establish a progressive and democratic political program which formulated a conception of modernity consistent with the interests and outlooks of the urban bourgeoisie seeking primacy under the Second Empire. The establishment of the Third Republic in 1870 and subsequent political victories in the 1880s signaled the triumph of the ideals and objectives devised by moderate Republicans between 1852 and 1870.

Radical transformations came about in Vienna during the 1780s, as intellectuals in the city embraced the Enlightenment and explored ways in which the movement could be spread. In 1781, Joseph II and his state reformed censorship. In an instant, the Viennese had access to the great scholarly works of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. In an instant, Vienna spawned a multitude of writers, publishing houses, reading rooms and all the accoutrements of a culture of print. The newly generated intellectual culture produced an amazing amount of pamphlets, an era termed the Broschürenflut in Austrian history. Public debate on the state, religion, and society accompanied the flood of short tracts, bringing together a group of intellectuals in support of Enlightenment. These men of letters quickly consolidated their energies to bring rational reform to the people of the Habsburg state through the methods of print and association. Their first project was a weekly literary review focusing exclusively on the domestic press called the Realzeitung. The editors worked in association to promote the development of a more profound, internationally acclaimed publishing center in Vienna and to seek to overcome the years of intellectual isolation and Catholic repression. The Viennese also adopted freemasonry in their attempt to become a center of Enlightened progress; scholars, poets, reformers, and musicians joined together in a lodge modeled on Western Academies. Zur Wahren Eintracht pushed members to produce academic works, music or poetry for special, semi-public lodge meetings whose purpose was to spread specialized knowledge and foster debate. The lodge did not stop at producing lectures; it also issued several successful periodical publications. Vienna thus quickly became a center of the Republic of Letters generating a remarkable amount of Enlightenment activity in a few short years. The ideas and methods of the Viennese Enlightenment were a product of and a response to the reforms of Joseph II. It would also be the kings wariness and lack of support that would cause the Enlightenment movement to recede; by the end of the decade freemasonry came under state regulation, secret police dampened public debate, and the press became less free.

The analysis in this dissertation connects Arthur Koestlers nonfiction and fiction to the political circumstances that defined Europe during the early twentieth century. It draws particular attention to events in the 1930s as representing a paucity of choices that frustrated certain liberal values held by Koestler and others. It shows how after taking sides with the German Communist Party in the early 1930s, he confronted then rejected the politics of the extreme left and right, leading himself toward a dual career as social philosopher and anti-Communist. This paper will explain how Koestlers reporting of the Spanish Civil War, combined with his description of his own attraction to and apostasy form Communism, established him as an important writer. It will look at Koestlers writing, particularly his imaginative use of analogy and metaphor, established during his early career as a journalist, as it discloses his dedication to the liberal notion of the common mans ability to understand complex ideas. This narrative will focus on Koestlers plea for an open, non-determined universe in several of his works. These include his novels, The Gladiators, Darkness at Noon, and Arrival and Departure, and his autobiographical works, Scum of the Earth, Arrow in the Blue, and The Invisible Writing. Close analysis will be given to his philosophical works, The Yogi and the Commissar, Insight and Outlook, and The Act of Creation. Some space will be given to the philosophy of science revealed in Koestlers The Ghost in the Machine. This paper will pay attention to two of Koestlers works that portray the practice of science as a humanistic endeavor. These are The Sleepwalkers and The Case of the Mid-wife Toad. The primary goal of this investigation is to show how Arthur Koestlers philosophical writing derived from the union of liberal political values in his musings about science and psychology. The analysis in this paper shows the central importance of Koestlers political experiences during the 1930s but also investigates the longer time frame of his life between the 1920s and the early 1980s. Its thesis is that Arthur Koestler persisted in his optimism for the longer term in the face of dehumanizing, pessimism-creating events that he experienced in the short term. This study concludes that it was Koestlers ties to values and optimistic attitudes established between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries by European culture that brought him to a hopeful attitude in humankinds future. It shows how Koestler maintained a hope in things that were not always apparent in his own lifetime. This dissertation explains that, in spite of the political events that defined the first half of the twentieth century, Arthur Koestler maintained a faith in modern European culture connected to its longer traditions of humanism.

The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Britain were founded in warfare beginning in the fifth century. These kingdoms developed alongside the native Romanized Britons, who attempted to reassert their authority in Britain in the wake of the Roman withdrawal. Northumbria, located north of the Humber River, the largest and most northerly of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms played a vital role in the politics of early medieval Britain. During the seventh century, the Northumbrian kings were recognized as the overkings of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, as well as the neighboring British and Pictish kingdoms. Over the course of several centuries, the leaders of Northumbria alternately engaged in military conflict and peace alliances with their most powerful northern neighbor, the Scots. After York fell to an invading Danish army in the ninth century, the lands of Northumberland were permanently divided along the Tees River valley into Yorkshire and Northumbria. The tenth and eleventh centuries witnessed power struggles between the earls of Northumbria and the English kings from Wessex. While the other Anglo-Saxon ealdormen received their political appointments from the kings and worked alongside their monarchs, the earls of Northumbria alone maintained political autonomy. Northumbria was uniquely located between the two emerging powers of Scotland and Anglo-Saxon England, yet never succumbed to either. Dedication to local Northumbrian ealdormen as earls, who exhibited strong military leadership and surprising political savvy, guaranteed Northumbria self-rule and unchanged laws until the Norman Conquest. Not until William Rufus II gained the throne of England in 1087 did Northumbria begin participating as a political and military entity within greater England.

New Orleans voters elected Sidney Barthelemy as the citys second African American mayor in 1986. Historical treatments of Barthelemys tenure generally do not hold him in the same high regard as New Orleans first African American mayor, Ernest Morial. Yet, unfavorable evaluations of Barthelemy reflect the maturation of African American politics in the Crescent City. Symbolic victories no longer resonate with an African American populous in need of substantive gains to redress longstanding social and economic inequities. With the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the struggle for African American equality entered its next phase, the transition from protest to politics. Denied the vote for so long, African Americans typically assigned high, even unrealistic, expectations to the liberating possibilities of the ballot. Yet, the mayoral tenure of Sidney Barthelemy illustrates the limitations of electoral politics as a vehicle for African American advancement. The consolidation of African American political power in New Orleans produced uneven gains. While the African American middle class benefited from set-aside programs for minority businesses and increased access to municipal employment, African Americans at the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder realized little more than rhetorical service from the election black mayors. Black political power did not translate into black economic power. And cuts in state and federal funding, declining tax bases owing to white flight to the suburbs, and downturns in vital industries rendered Mayor Barthelemy impotent in uplifting conditions for poor and working-class African Americans. These findings suggest that the struggle for African American equality must permutate beyond the narrow confines of electoral politics.

Hagiography, writings about saints, was generally a means of venerating a saint's life. An author of hagiography wrote to advance his own salvation as well as to educate his audience on the proper practice of Christianity. Anglo-Saxon hagiography written in the years after the Council of Whitby in 664, however, also showed more support for the Roman tradition as opposed to Celtic Christianity. In an era when Christians in England were divided both culturally and religiously, unification under a single tradition as the one true representative of the faith was essential. This paper is an analysis of four important hagiographical works from the late-seventh and early-eighth centuries; the Lives of Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow by Bede, the Anonymous Life of Ceolfrith, the Life of Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus, and the Life of Cuthbert by Bede. The hagiography covers this transitional period in Anglo-Saxon England when most of the Celtic monks in and around the kingdom of Northumbria resisted the switch to Roman monasticism. The Lives written about Benedict Biscop, Ceolfrith, Wilfrid and Cuthbert reveal how the transition began and progressed in the years after the synod.

Men from throughout the Trans-Mississippi South enlisted in the Union army during the Civil War both in existing northern regiments and in units raised specifically for the purpose of enlisting southerners. The men who joined and fought represented almost every social and ethnic division within the region and contributed substantially to the success of Union arms during the war. Examining a single regiment from each state or territory in the region (except Louisiana, where one white and one black unit were chosen due to segregation) reveals similarities of background, experience and purpose. Louisiana's contributions to the Union army were primarily black soldiers, although a smaller number of white immigrants and freeholders also served. Texas' contribution was equally divided between native-born southerners and Hispanics, while the Indian Territory contributed Native Americans from several southern tribes. Arkansas' Union soldiers were split equally between white farmers from the northwestern corner of the state and freed slaves from the southeast. Service varied among the several regiments, but included active campaigning, anti-guerrilla operations and the far more mundane garrison duty. Men succumbed to disease in extraordinary numbers due in part to their position at the end of an extended logistic system in an ignored backwater of the war. These southerners represent the staunchest internal opposition to the Confederacy and contributed significantly to the restoration of Federal authority. Whatever their background these soldiers possessed a strong ideological attachment to the Union and endured severe hardships and oppression in order to vindicate a cause many valued more than their own lives.

The subject of this thesis is religious dissent in Restoration England. The government of Charles II and the reinstated Church of England both had programs on how to deal with the problem of religious nonconformity. This project presents the punitive legislation supported by king, parliament, and church to stamp out dissent. These programs were unable to sway the beliefs of committed nonconformists who gave testimony to the strength of their beliefs by facing persecution and imprisonment.

The problems of social and economic reform were at the center of academic and political activities of Maksim M. Kovalevskii (1851-1916), a prominent Russian historian and sociologist. The comparative study of rural communal institutions led him to conclude that the village commune remained a viable social and economic institution in late imperial Russia. Although he believed firmly in private agriculture, he criticized the Stolypin land reform for attempting to pressure peasants to separate from communes. Kovalevskii argued that in a country dominated by communal traditions the state must not destroy the collective economy by legislative fiat. He urged Russian policy-makers to support the village commune instead of destroying it and pointed to substantial evidence of the commune's economic potential. Recent studies have confirmed Kovalevskii's assertions that communal economic arrangements in the post-Emancipation Russian village were flexible enough to allow for innovation and improvement. Kovalevskii's analysis challenges us to revise our understanding of rural communal institutions and of the general dynamic of social and economic change.

The following study addresses the contentious issue of Swiss economic policy during the Second World War. In particular, it concentrates on the deterioration of Swiss-American relations that resulted from Switzerlands economic ties to Nazi Germany. It is argued that Switzerlands survival as a neutral and democratic country depended less on the defense preparations of the Swiss Army and more on the difficult trade negotiations with both the Axis and Allies. Varied sources that include American and Swiss governmental reports, diplomatic documents, and contemporary accounts of the war, support the argument that although moral considerations played a secondary role to economic necessities, Switzerlands trade with Nazi Germany did not prolong the Second World War nor were such ties immoral in nature. Instead, the inability or unwillingness of Allied countries like the United States and Great Britain to provide Switzerland with much-needed raw materials and food imports led the neutral country to forge closer ties with the Axis. The emphasis of the study is to assess accurately Switzerlands wartime economic conduct and is not meant to provide an apologetic rationalization of its relationship with Nazi Germany. After first considering the historical origins of Switzerlands neutrality and its economic and political institutions, the study proceeds to examine the immediate effects of its foreign trade policy and the longer-term consequences of the damaged relations with the United States in the Cold War. The study closes by addressing the problems stemming from the poly-ethnic and multi-cultural composition of the Swiss Confederation that can provide excellent insight into the current dilemmas experienced by European countries as they strive for political and economic integration.