Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study approaches the field of military history with approaches to the study of sound in order to interrogate the concept of war that underpins military historiography as a disciplinary formation. It delineates the notion of the phonographic attitude with which to think about the ways in which technology, war, and the senses coalesce in broader historical writing about war, colonialism, and apartheid in South Africa. In so doing, it suggests that an attention to what it calls the warring motifs is necessary if a reorientation of a reading of war and apartheid away from a politics of deadness is to be achieved. It does so through a methodological approach that attends to various objects in South African historiography that may be attended to differently through an emphasis on the sensorial. These include the state-sponsored Walkman bomb that killed ANC lawyer Bheki Mlangeni, a record produced by artist Roger Lucey in memory of the death of activist Lungile Tabalaza, the supposed whistle or shout that led the indigenous Khoikhoi to victory over the Portuguese in 1510, a lithographic print by William Kentridge named after a radio programme for troops engaged in South Africa’s border war, the bell of sunken troopship SS Mendi, and the first recording of the hymn ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’ by intellectual and key figure in a history of nationalism in South Africa, Sol T Plaatje.

British forts in the colonial American backcountry have long been subjects of American heroic myth. Forts were romanticized as harbingers of European civilization, and the Indians who visited them as awestruck, childlike, or scheming. Two centuries of historiography did little to challenge the image of Indians as noble but peripheral figures who were swept aside by the juggernaut of European expansion. In the last few decades, historians have attacked the persistent notion that Indians were supporting participants and sought to reposition them as full agents in the early American story. But in their search for Indian agency, historians have given little attention to British forts as exceptional contact points in their own rights. This dissertation examines five such forts and their surrounding regions as places defined by cultural accommodation and confluence, rather than as outposts of European empire. Studying Indian-British interactions near such forts reveals the remarkable extent to which Indians defined the fort experience for both natives and newcomers. Indians visited forts as friends, enemies, and neutrals. They were nearly always present at or near backcountry forts. In many cases, Indians requested forts from their British allies for their own purposes. They used British forts as trading outposts, news centers, community hubs, diplomatic meeting places, and suppliers of gifts. But even with the advantages that could sometimes accrue from the presence of forts, many Indians still resented them. Forts could attract settlers, and often failed to regulate trade and traders sufficiently to please native consumers. Indians did not hesitate to press fort personnel for favors and advantages. In cases where British officers and soldiers failed to impress Indians, or angered them, the results were sometimes violent and extreme. This study makes a start at seeing forts as places that were at least as much a part of the Native American landscape as they were outposts of European aggression. at Forts Loudoun, Allen, Michilimackinac, Niagara, and Chartres, Indians used their abilities and influence to turn the objectives of the British fort system upside down. as centers of British-Indian cultural confluence, these forts evoke an early America marked by a surprising degree of Indian agency. at these contact points people lived for the moment. The America of the future, marked by Indian dispossession and British-American social dominance, was an outcome few could imagine.

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David DuBois has chronicled the opening days of World War II in the Pacific and the demise of the U.S. Navy's Asiatic Fleet, relying extensively on primary sources such as combat narratives, after action reports, ship's logs, and testimony from congressional hearings. His extensive analysis and historically-substantiated revision of the standard narrative surrounding the initial weeks and months of the Pacific war is a must-read for every World War II historian or enthusiast. - Dr. Stephen G. Fritz, Professor of History, East Tennessee State University / https://dc.etsu.edu/alumni_books/1027/thumbnail.jpg

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This study examines prostitution in Union-occupied cities during the American Civil War. During the war, the visibility of urban prostitution triggered contentious public debates over appropriate forms of sexuality and over the position of sexualized women in public areas. Union commanders posted in occupied cities had an especially difficult time dealing with prostitution since their garrison troops had money, were not preoccupied by marching and fighting, and expected urban pleasures in an urban environment. For example, military authorities in Washington, D. C., Norfolk, Virginia, and New Orleans, Louisiana, unsuccessfully struggled to control or eliminate public prostitution using traditional legal systems. The provost marshals of Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee met with more success when they began the first American experiment in legalized prostitution. The military hoped that regulation, which required sex workers to purchase licenses and pass medical exams, would curb the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Although both prostitutes and Union soldiers seem to have benefited from legalization, civilians vehemently and publicly proclaimed its negative effects on society. Despite the experiment’s medical and financial success, civic authorities deregulated the sex trade once the war ended and the military governance ceased. In this thesis, based on contemporary newspapers, correspondence, and military records, I argue that this postwar deregulation was a reaction against the prostitutes’ wartime encroachment on public space.