A la mi-septembre 1944, la France métropolitaine se trouve en grande partie libérée. Au terme de quatre années d'occupation, l'outil militaire national est à reconstruire. Soucieux de préparer l'avenir et, à court terme, de contribuer significativement à la victoire alliée, le gouvernement provisoire de la République française entend s'y atteler sans attendre, en négociant, un nouveau plan de réarmement avec les Alliés et en mettant à profit le potentiel humain constitué par les Forces françaises de l'Intérieur (FFI). Les négociations avec les Alliés aboutissent laborieusement au plan de réarmement du 30 novembre 1944, dont la mise en œuvre va tourner court au printemps suivant. Quant à l'intégration des hétérogènes FFI dans l'Armée, elle donne brièvement lieu à un bras de fer politique durant l'automne 1944. Le gouvernement provisoire n'est en effet pas la seule entité politique française à envisager la refondation d'une armée nationale. Sans attendre le gouvernement, une part des cadres et des organes issus de la Résistance intérieure a en effet d'emblée engagé des initiatives militaires, dérégulées et décentralisées, bien que non nécessairement divergentes par rapport à l'action gouvernementale. La présente thèse propose d'étudier ces projets et ces organisations, ainsi que les voies de leur intégration au sein des projets gouvernementaux, en prêtant une attention particulière aux dynamiques régionales. Cette thèse est divisée en quatre parties. La première partie, intitulée Tous en rangs !, est consacrée aux jeux d’acteurs français. Cette partie a pour centre de gravité la question du rétablissement par le gouvernement, avec un mode opératoire tantôt dirigiste, tantôt négocié, d'une administration militaire territoriale, sous la forme de régions militaires, destinées à servir de matrices incubatrices pour la formation de nouvelles unités. La seconde partie, intitulée Formez vos bataillons !, traite des modes de construction des projets de réarmement de 1944-1945. Outre une réinterrogation du plan de réarmement du 30 novembre 1944 et des raisons de son échec, cette partie est consacrée aux initiatives décentralisées de grandes unités (avec une douzaine de projets de divisions FFI) et au parcours souvent sinueux ayant conduit des bataillons de marche FFI de l'automne 1944 aux nouveaux régiments du printemps 1945. Une troisième partie, intitulée Engagez-vous !, décrit les modalités de réunion des ressources humaines nécessaires aux projets de réarmement, sans se limiter aux FFI ni à la seule question de l'amalgame pratiqué au sein de la 1re Armée française. Enfin, la dernière partie, intitulée Aux armes !, présente les modalités d’accès aux ressources matérielles requises pour l’équipement des forces recréées en métropole, en se focalisant sur les voies alternatives au matériel américain qui n'a guère été perçu en 1945 que sous forme d'échantillons. Cette partie aborde successivement l'emploi de matériels britanniques de seconde main, les essais de relance d'une production industrielle française dès l'automne 1944 et le recours à la récupération de matériels de prise, abandonnés par les forces allemandes. Au final, la présente thèse expose une dynamique de refondation militaire hybride, sensiblement différente de celle opérée en Afrique du Nord en 1943. Dans un environnement mouvant et concurrentiel, en l’absence des livraisons escomptées d'armement américain, le projet gouvernemental initial a été largement amendé, intégrant une part des initiatives décentralisées et entrepreneuriales issues de la Résistance intérieure, tout en les canalisant. / In September 1944, the main part of France has been liberated. Thus, for the French provisional government as for the Allied headquarter, time was to rearmament by using the French manpower and the metropolitan industrial plants. The place for innovation is weak: what was planned, was just the continuity of allied schemes and of the pre-war French military institution. But, without waiting for governmental or allied instructions, a part of the Resistance's leaders has developed different local or global rearmament programs, especially by using the volunteers of the French Forces of Interior, in order to contribute to the final victory as to the renaissance of a new French army earned by the Resistance's ideas.The present thesis deals with the organizations and the projects born in this frame: their conditions of apparition, their ways of development and their integration’s modalities within the French Army and within the Allied strategy. A large importance is accorded to the regional and decentralized dynamics observed through the French territory. As a result, compared to the rearmament occurred in North Africa in 1943, the French rearmament's approaches took on the French ground a different and novel path, including initiatives and entrepreneurship.

La vie et l’oeuvre de Howard Zinn cristallisent un ensemble de dynamiques contradictoires. Issu d’une génération marquée par la Grande Dépression et la Seconde Guerre mondiale, il deviendra – à la différence d’autres figures publiques de sa génération – une figure phare de la nouvelle gauche et de son pendant historiographique, la nouvelle histoire sociale. Hissé ainsi au rang d’intellectuel engagé suite aux mouvements sociaux des années 1960, il reste pourtant influencé par la Weltanschauung de son temps. Or loin d’être une trajectoire atypique au sein de sa classe d’âge, un tel parcours permet d’éclairer autrement les comportements collectifs de cette génération, notamment en permettant de s’extraire d’une grille de lecture encore largement axée sur des identités culturelles spécifiques. A ce titre, il permet une relecture des générations intellectuelles aux Etats-Unis associant des communautés trop souvent dissociées selon une approche idéologique plus inclusive. / Howard Zinn’s life and work embodies contradictory dynamics. Though himself from a generation which came of age during the Great Depression and World War Two, he became a leading figure of the New Left as well as a representative of the new social history. He indeed rose to prominence as a public intellectual through his involvement in the social movements of the 1960s, while remaining influenced by the Weltanschauung of his own times. Far from being atypical for his age group, his trajectory sheds new light on the collective behavior of this generation. Indeed, it points to the possibility of going beyond a historiography which has been largely informed by specific cultural identities. By moving away from an approach too narrowly ideological, the study of Howard Zinn’s life and work will offer a more inclusive approach to generational issues in the United States.

The subject of Canada’s policy-making in relation to the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) has been neglected for over half a century. Therefore neither the scope of Canada’s official assistance to the Chinese during their War of Resistance against Japan nor the motivations behind this assistance have been fully explained or adequately contextualized. Through research using archival records and other primary and secondary sources, the thesis sheds light on the ways in which Canadians chose to respond to Chinese efforts to secure an ally against Japan. Revealing unscrupulous opportunism on the Canadian side during China’s struggle against Japan, the thesis contributes to a revisionist trend which takes aim at romantic mythology about Canadians’ virtuous role in the Second World War. From 1931 to 1941, the Government of Canada sought to maintain a neutral position regarding Japanese encroachments in China. This was partly to honour a friendship established in the First World War but also to protect Canadian exporters’ valuable sales of strategic minerals to Japan. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, pro-Japanese sympathy among Canadians eroded and trade with Japan became politically untenable. In 1942, already five years after the beginning of full-scale war between Japan and China, the Canadian government began preparations to provide material assistance to the beleaguered Chinese. Increasing dialogue between Mackenzie King and Chiang Kai-shek, especially communications through Chiang’s wife Song Meiling, nurtured a promising friendship despite King’s unwillingness to commit “the lives of white men” to war in China and apparently ensured that several shipments of arms and munitions were provided to Chiang’s armies. As the research reveals, the assistance was motivated by hopes of cultivating “goodwill” in China that would favour Canadian businesses after the war. However, the official decision to assist China against Japan sparked a new controversy. Doubts about China’s postwar political stability gave rise to questions about the danger that Canadian munitions would be used in an imminent Chinese civil war. Such warnings, as it turned out, were merited. A bloody conflict between the Communists and Nationalists would erupt in China shortly after the end of the Second World War, in part waged with Canadian weapons. / Thesis (Master, History) -- Queen's University, 2011-05-05 15:23:06.094

No description available.

This thesis explores the Churchill Weavers stereocards housed at the Kentucky Historical Society and Berea College based on visual analysis. By examining the stereocards as advertisements and comparing them to a series of short films created by the company, I will discuss how the Churchill Weavers created a brand that emphasized both an image of traditional American rural production and modern urban consumption. I will further discuss how the marketing strategies used by the Churchill Weavers exemplify a larger trend in American advertising in the years following World War Two.

As we pass the 6oth anniversary of the end of World War Two (WW2) historians are diligently collecting the memoirs of veterans to preserve for future generations. Public archives of memorabilia, letters, photos and artefacts, in the process of digitisation are complimenting the stone memorials of the past. This material culture of memory discusses human interaction. “The poor, the rich, the brave and the afraid, the hero and the deserter” (Moriarty, 1999, p 654). In contemporary museum culture this digitised information is presented in either web-based systems, or interactive kiosks. However, this approach to packaging memories and historical data often leaves out much of the depth of the topic information, skimming the surface of the knowledge conveyed. New solutions to memory and artefact display have been developed effectively in the Churchill room’s exhibit designed by Small Design (Kabat,2008) and Memory Miner (Memory Miner, 2008), a home-based memory archive programme by John Fox. Both convey the memories and artefacts upon a mapped interface, using our desire to discover and connect with memories to navigate the narrative in a self-guided format. The Storytelling Memories project seeks to build on current research to formulate an interactive platform of memory immersion and experience within a museum environment. The project utilises a touch sensitive surface as an interface between the viewer and the memories. A physical controller, when placed near the interface surface will “unlock” contained memories, enabling an open-ended storytelling experience. The design encourages the user to interact directly with the memories to create their own dialogue, with the intention of developing a more emotive, personal connection to the Veteran.

As we pass the 6oth anniversary of the end of World War Two (WW2) historians are diligently collecting the memoirs of veterans to preserve for future generations. Public archives of memorabilia, letters, photos and artefacts, in the process of digitisation are complimenting the stone memorials of the past. This material culture of memory discusses human interaction. “The poor, the rich, the brave and the afraid, the hero and the deserter” (Moriarty, 1999, p 654). In contemporary museum culture this digitised information is presented in either web-based systems, or interactive kiosks. However, this approach to packaging memories and historical data often leaves out much of the depth of the topic information, skimming the surface of the knowledge conveyed. New solutions to memory and artefact display have been developed effectively in the Churchill room’s exhibit designed by Small Design (Kabat,2008) and Memory Miner (Memory Miner, 2008), a home-based memory archive programme by John Fox. Both convey the memories and artefacts upon a mapped interface, using our desire to discover and connect with memories to navigate the narrative in a self-guided format. The Storytelling Memories project seeks to build on current research to formulate an interactive platform of memory immersion and experience within a museum environment. The project utilises a touch sensitive surface as an interface between the viewer and the memories. A physical controller, when placed near the interface surface will “unlock” contained memories, enabling an open-ended storytelling experience. The design encourages the user to interact directly with the memories to create their own dialogue, with the intention of developing a more emotive, personal connection to the Veteran.

As we pass the 6oth anniversary of the end of World War Two (WW2) historians are diligently collecting the memoirs of veterans to preserve for future generations. Public archives of memorabilia, letters, photos and artefacts, in the process of digitisation are complimenting the stone memorials of the past. This material culture of memory discusses human interaction. “The poor, the rich, the brave and the afraid, the hero and the deserter” (Moriarty, 1999, p 654). In contemporary museum culture this digitised information is presented in either web-based systems, or interactive kiosks. However, this approach to packaging memories and historical data often leaves out much of the depth of the topic information, skimming the surface of the knowledge conveyed. New solutions to memory and artefact display have been developed effectively in the Churchill room’s exhibit designed by Small Design (Kabat,2008) and Memory Miner (Memory Miner, 2008), a home-based memory archive programme by John Fox. Both convey the memories and artefacts upon a mapped interface, using our desire to discover and connect with memories to navigate the narrative in a self-guided format. The Storytelling Memories project seeks to build on current research to formulate an interactive platform of memory immersion and experience within a museum environment. The project utilises a touch sensitive surface as an interface between the viewer and the memories. A physical controller, when placed near the interface surface will “unlock” contained memories, enabling an open-ended storytelling experience. The design encourages the user to interact directly with the memories to create their own dialogue, with the intention of developing a more emotive, personal connection to the Veteran.

No description available.

A survey and assessment of Canadian monetary conditions and policies during the period from the end of World War II to the end of 1951, with particular reference to the two periods of rapid inflation (July 1946 to December 1948 and July 1950 to December 1951). / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)