This dissertation studies the critical and historical examination of modern Japanese Buddhism in terms of its collaboration with and resistance to ultranationalism and militarism before and during World War II. It also examines how Buddhism came to Japan and transformed itself according to the historical, social and political contexts throughout history. Also it shows how and why Japanese Buddhism has transformed the Gautama Buddha's teachings, the Dhamma and the notion of community, Sangha to its own in terms in relationship to the state. In order to examine the Japan's modern-nation-state's invention of installing a national consciousness and identity in the people through the means of State Shinto and the emperor, kokutai ideology after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, I apply the methodologies of social critical theories of James Scott, Benedict Anderson, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. After the Tokugawa shogunate's long patronage of Buddhism (1602-1868), the dissertation examines how modern Japanese Buddhism was challenged by the Meiji state, and transformed itself to meet the need of the modern-nation-state centered on State Shinto and kokutai ideology. Moreover, it exposes how Japanese Buddhism struggled to meet the modernity itself such as individuality and socialization. Furthermore, in the 1930-40's, in the context of rise of ultranationalism and militarism in the name of "overcoming modernity," this dissertation explores how the Japanese Buddhist sects such as True Pure Land, Nichiren, Zen, and the Kyoto School collaborated with and resisted to them. Despite the main Japanese Buddhism's active participation in the war, there were few Japanese Buddhists' resistances. The dissertation examines why and how they could not effectively resist but failed. Moreover, the dissertation shows that there were several opportunities that Japanese Buddhism might have stopped the state's control of religions--the rise of ultranationalism and war ideology in the cases of Uchimura Kanzô's lese majeste in the 1890's, the state's failures of ratification on the Religious Organization Law twice in the 1920's, and Seno'o Girô's anti-fascist movements in the 1930's--the Buddhists had had critical minds and organizational wills alongside with the interreligious cooperation with Christianity and new religions. Thus, this dissertation critically examines Japanese Buddhism in three terms; the social critical ethics, the interreligious dialogue, and the trans-national dialogue. It shows why and how Japanese Buddhism lost the Buddha's critical mind, social ethics, the democratic origin of Sangha, as well as the trans-national dialogue with Korean, Chinese and South Asian Buddhists and eventually justified the Japanese imperial aggression against Asia. I hope that my dissertation will help the Japanese Buddhists undertake a self-critical examination of their involvement in World War II, and would set up a good example of self-criticism of religion and nationalism. It could certainly help the current Islamic people's struggles for democracy, nationalism and holy war. Also in case of China's nationalistic expansionism which resembles the Japan of 1930-40's, in the name of nationalism and social harmony, religious freedom was limited to the inner private realm, but its public role in checking nationalism was suppressed. Tibetan Buddhism, Falun Gong and house Christian churches cried out for their freedom. Therefore the self-critical examination of the rise and fall of the Japanese empire in terms of religion, religious freedom and ultranationalism might help Chinese religions and intellectuals as well as other cases involving religion, nationalism and war. / Religion

Military historians have been debating the U.S. Army's World War II replacement system for decades, but no one has completed a detailed study of the War Department's policies and practice. Authors have focused primarily on how combat units overcame the system's limitations, but they have not conducted an in-depth examination of its creation, structure, and function. Nor did they question why infantry divisions had to devise their own replacement policies in the first place. The extant literature is too celebratory of the army and utilizes ultimate victory as a measure of efficiency and effectiveness. Such a myopic view has prevented these earlier studies from evaluating how the replacement system affected the overall course of the European war. This dissertation breaks new ground by presenting a comprehensive overview of the replacement system--from the War Department down to the squad, and from the last days of World War I through the post-World War II years. It will elucidate a process of failed administration and implementation at the highest levels of the War Department and army, but it will also relate a "grassroots" story of success at the divisional level and below. The War Department's managerial approach to the utilization of military manpower was both inefficient and wasteful. The army largely overlooked the impact of individuality, morale, psyche, experience, and training on a soldier's performance. Its insistence on rushing men to the line once combat operations began meant that it often neglected to train, orient, and equip replacements in a manner conducive to their favorable and effective integration into combat units. The GIs at the front, both veterans and replacements alike, suffered for this oversight. / History

Edward Mallory "Ned" Almond belonged to the generation of US Army officers who came of age during World War I and went on to hold important command positions in World War II and the Korean War. His contemporaries included some of America's greatest captains such as Omar N. Bradley. While Almond is no longer a household name, he played a key role in Army history. Almond was ambitious and gave his all to everything he did. He was a careful student of his profession, a successful commander at battalion and corps level, a dedicated staff officer, something of a scholar, a paternalistic commander turned vehement racist, and a right-wing zealot. He earned his greatest accolades commanding the American troops who landed at Inchon, South Korea, on September 15, 1950, an amphibious flanking movement that temporarily transformed the nature of the Korean War. A soldier of such accomplishments and contradictions has gone too long without a scholarly biography; this dissertation will fill that void. This biography of Lt. Gen. Edward M. Almond makes a significant and original contribution to the existing historiography by examining his life in the context of the times in which he served. Almond earned tremendous respect throughout his career for his work as a commander and military administrator from his superiors, including Gen. George C. Marshall and Gen. Douglas MacArthur, but his current reputation as the US Army's most virulent racist overshadows all of these accomplishments. Almond's attitude was not unique; racism pervaded both the Army and the United States of his day. His views reflected the dominant view of the rural white South where he grew up, and did not differ much from those of his more famous peers. Almond, however, would never accept the changes his contemporaries and the Army eventually acknowledged. Almond's reactionary posture stands in sharp contrast to the rest of his career, in which he distinguished himself as an innovator open to new ideas. This dissertation will attempt to reconcile that other Almond and show that there was more to him than his bigoted command policies. Almond's career paralleled these developments in American society and changes in the US Army. His highly professional attitude yet stubborn resistance to social change typified the senior military leadership of the era. When those racial attitudes began to change, Almond represented an increasingly outdated ideology that held black men were innately incapable of becoming good soldiers. At the end of a long life and successful career, Almond was better known for his repugnant racial attitudes than for his genuine successes. First, Almond performed better as the commander of the 92nd Division than is commonly reported, despite that unit's significant difficulties in combat. This dissertation will also explore how his experiences with the 92nd Division, and the Army's later desegregation decisions, embittered him toward black soldiers. Second, both success and failure marked his command of X Corps in Korea, and his personal relationships with other officers obscured some of his accomplishments. Third, while serving as commandant of the US Army War College, Almond would tap his rich store of military experience to push the Army toward a greater commitment to joint operations. / History

This investigation is a study of the issues involved in the disputed cases pertaining to the Oil Refining Industry which were certified to the Eighth Regional War Labor Board serving Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana during World War II.

The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of the Second World War upon the agricultural economy of Henderson County, Texas, with primary emphasis upon the economic and social changes brought about by wartime conditions during the years 1940 through 1945.

The United States Army of the Second World War faced a shortage of manpower after two decades of budgetary and organizational neglect following the post-First World. According to the Chief of Staff, George C. Marshall, this period of mobilization, between 1939 and 1941, was the most crucial of the entire war. In this period, the United States Army pursued large-scale peacetime mobilization, breaking from eighty years of traditional policy. As such, the effort to increase allocations for armaments, industrial expansion, tactical reorganization of the ground forces, mobilizing the National Guard, and the implementation of a peacetime draft all faced an uphill political battle to accomplish, reflecting the complicated political factionalism of the late New-Deal United States. Between the outbreak of hostilities in Europe in 1939 and December 1941, the United States Army grew from less than 150,000 men to more than 1 million personnel, incorporating the National Guard and inductees while also adopting many of the weapon systems it would use throughout the conflict. By mobilizing a usable core for a wartime army and vetting its general tactics and doctrine in peacetime, the Army leadership provided a cadre capable of responding to some of the Allied powers' strategic requirements during the critical year of 1942.

In this dissertation, I conduct a reflection on the effects of disaster on time perceptions and their consequences on architecture as a vessel of social and individual values, through a study of two major paradigmatic disasters spaces – Post World War II Japan and Post-earthquake Haiti. While on the surface these two cases do not have many points in common, both are instrumental to establishing the manifestation of disasters' impacts on the culture of construction and on the architectural theories that ensue from them. The first case, Japan after the Second World War, establishes the long term influences and changes in social and architectural thought that occur after a disaster, while Haiti, examines the role of the architect in the reconstruction phases and attempts to register the immediate impressions of local architects on the disaster's impact on their practice. I show that both cases exhibit manifestations of the importance of the architect's role of not only building back, but moving forward while capitalizing on the events and social changes that happened. / Ph. D. / This dissertation reflects on the impacts of disasters on architecture and on the production of space. Through an analysis of the history of architecture in Post-World War Two Japan and the trends of architectural thought in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, this research has been able to establish linkages between the role of time and memory and the changes of architectural practices after destruction. In the case of Japan, the destruction caused by the Second World War triggered a change in the perception of the role of architects in social. It also allowed local Japanese architects to innovate and create an architectural language that translated the social changes that occurred in their country after the end of the Second World War. This caused a preservation of an active memory of the history and culture of Japan through new designs and buildings that propelled Japan in the forefront of contemporary architecture. Haiti on the other hand, is on the cusp of major changes in its cityscapes, after the 2010 earthquake. However, the building community (architects, engineers, etc.) needs support to strengthen its capacity to translate the local cultural values in the new climate of postearthquake Haiti.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Mark P. Parillo / ABSTRACT Historians of the integration of the American military and African American military participation have argued that the post-World War II period was the critical period for the integration of the U.S. Navy. This dissertation argues that World War II was “the” critical period for the integration of the Navy because, in addition to forcing the Navy to change its racial policy, the war altered the Navy’s attitudes towards its African American personnel. African Americans have a long history in the U.S. Navy. In the period between the French and Indian War and the Civil War, African Americans served in the Navy because whites would not. This is especially true of the peacetime service, where conditions, pay, and discipline dissuaded most whites from enlisting. During the Civil War, a substantial number of escaped slaves and other African Americans served. Reliance on racially integrated crews survived beyond the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, only to succumb to the principle of “separate but equal,” validated by the Supreme Court in the Plessy case (1896). As racial segregation took hold and the era of “Jim Crow” began, the Navy separated the races, a task completed by the time America entered World War I. The Navy paid the price in lost efficiency to maintain the policy. After the war, the Navy chose to accept African Americans solely for duty as messmen and stewards. Matters changed in World War II. The Navy eventually lifted its restrictions on African American enlistment and promotions, commissioned its first African American officers, and finally committed itself to a program of integration. The increased interaction between whites and African Americans had also led to white officers and policymakers re-assessing the value of African American sailors, a crucial sine qua non for the actualization of integration in the postwar years.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Mark P. Parillo / The primary figure in the creation and administration of alternative service for conscientious objectors (COs) during World War II was General Lewis B. Hershey, Director of the Selective Service. With an executive order by President Franklin D. Roosevelt placing the responsibility for alternative service on the shoulders of Hershey, any program within Civilian Public Service (the alternative service program for COs) desired by the Historic Peace Churches (Brethren, Mennonite, Society of Friends) needed Hershey’s approval before it could commence. As a product of the National Guard, Hershey possessed a strong belief in the duty of the citizen to the state in a time of national emergency. However, Hershey also had Mennonite ancestry and a strong belief in minority rights. Though not personally religious, all of his beliefs towards religion, duty, minority rights, and service contributed to a much more liberal policy for COs during World War II, compared to the insensitive treatment of them during the First World War. In short, “Protector of Conscience, Proponent of Service” argues that Lewis Hershey held the primary authority for constructing policy concerning conscientious objection during World War II, and his personal beliefs and actions in shaping alternative service during that time established precedent for the remaining years of conscription in the United States. From the initial peacetime draft in 1940 to the end of conscription in 1973, alternative service remained as the central form of a CO’s duty to the state in lieu of serving in the military. Hershey’s beliefs and actions during World War II resulted in a concept of alternative service that remained for the following years of conscription in the United States, providing an illuminating example of how the concept of the citizen soldier evolved in American military history and extended even to those who refused to serve in the military.

This dissertation concerns the legacy of the Nazi forced enlistment during World War II and focuses more precisely on the case of Alsace/Moselle. Many of these French men, enlisted by force from 1942 in the German army, were sent to the Eastern Front and experienced Soviet prison camps. The aim of this thesis is to examine how knowledge and memories about forced enlistment and Soviet captivity have been remembered, commemorated, communicated and passed on since the Alsatian/Mosellan POWs (Prisoners of War) carried the tokens of enemies or traitors when reintegrating their motherland, France. Four strategies dealing with the experiences of forced enlistment and of internment in Soviet prison camps are examined. I present how the first and most common strategy, i.e. avoidance, is contributing to an individual and collective construction of silence. Then I argue that a second strategy, the constitution of families of remembrance, is helping them to articulate and narrate their experiences (third strategy). The fourth strategy is the organisation of pilgrimages (emic term) to the former prison camp of Tambov, where the majority of the Alsatian/Mosellan POWs were gathered during the war. This last strategy actualises the issue of the transmission of the war experiences given that pilgrimages bring together three to four generations. Through fieldwork observations of the journeys I show how the pilgrims engage with a sense of the past. They remember and reassess the meaning of the past in terms of the social, cultural and political needs of the present. The importance of place and the aspect of self-in-place are thoughtfully analysed in order to highlight the process of passing on the memory of Tambov. I conclude by arguing that the agents of remembrance interviewed for the purpose of this thesis are engaged in turning the tangible and intangible legacies of World War II into heritage. This is done by releasing the legacy of forced enlistment and internment in Soviet prison camp from the private/familial sphere and inscribing it in the public sphere. Yet, the agency of the former POWs and their descendants shows how to let pass a past “that does not want to pass” in a contemporary European context.