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More than any other American historical figure, Abraham Lincoln towers over the global landscape, a leader who spoke - and continues to speak - to people around the world. This book tells the unknown and remarkable story of this great president's worldwide legacy, exploring the image and influence of Lincoln in places ranging from Germany to Japan, India to Ireland, Africa and Argentina to the American South.
Historians have long treated the patriotic anthems of the American Civil War as colorful, if largely insignificant, side notes. Beneath the surface of these songs, however, is a complex story. “Maryland, My Maryland” was one of the most popular Confederate songs during the American Civil War, yet its story is full of ironies that draw attention to the often painful and contradictory actions and beliefs that were both cause and effect of the war. Most telling of all, it was adopted as one of a handful of Southern anthems even though it celebrated a state that never joined the Confederacy. In Maryland, My Maryland: Music and Patriotism during the American Civil War James A. Davis illuminat...
This engaging history of one of the largest ethnic groups in Illinois explores the influence and experiences of German immigrants and their descendants from their arrival in the middle of the nineteenth century to their heritage identity today. Coauthors Miranda E. Wilkerson and Heather Richmond examine the primary reasons that Germans came to Illinois and describe how they adapted to life and distinguished themselves through a variety of occupations and community roles. The promise of cheap land and fertile soil in rural areas and emerging industries in cities attracted three major waves of German-speaking immigrants to Illinois in search of freedom and economic opportunities. Before long t...
German Americans were one of the largest immigrant groups in the Civil War era, and they comprised nearly 10 percent of all Union troops. Yet little attention has been paid to their daily lives--both on the battlefield and on the home front--during the war. This collection of letters, written by German immigrants to friends and family back home, provides a new angle to our understanding of the Civil War experience and challenges some long-held assumptions about the immigrant experience at this time. Originally published in Germany in 2002, this collection contains more than three hundred letters written by seventy-eight German immigrants--men and women, soldiers and civilians, from the North and South. Their missives tell of battles and boredom, privation and profiteering, motives for enlistment and desertion and for avoiding involvement altogether. Although written by people with a variety of backgrounds, these letters describe the conflict from a distinctly German standpoint, the editors argue, casting doubt on the claim that the Civil War was the great melting pot that eradicated ethnic antagonisms.
From 1861 to 1865, the Civil War raged along the great rivers of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. While various Civil War biographies exist, none have been devoted exclusively to participants in the Western river war as waged down the Mississippi to the mouth of the Red River, and up the Ohio, the Tennessee and the Cumberland. Based on the Official Records, county histories, newspapers and internet sources, this is the first work to profile personnel involved in the fighting on these great streams. Included in this biographical encyclopedia are Union and Confederate naval officers down to the rank of mate; enlisted sailors who won the Medal of Honor, or otherwise distinguished themselves or...
In an era of rapidly increasing technological advances and international exchange, how did young people come to understand the world beyond their doorsteps? Focusing on Germany through the lens of the history of knowledge, this collection explores various media for children—from textbooks, adventure stories, and other literature to board games, museums, and cultural events—to probe what they aimed to teach young people about different cultures and world regions. These multifaceted contributions from specialists in historical, literary, and cultural studies delve into the ways that children absorbed, combined, and adapted notions of the world.
This thought-provoking study by historian Monique Laney focuses on the U.S. government–assisted integration of German rocket specialists and their families into a small southern community soon after World War II. In 1950, Wernher von Braun and his team of rocket experts relocated to Huntsville, Alabama, a town that would celebrate the team, despite their essential role in the recent Nazi war effort, for their contributions to the U.S. Army missile program and later to NASA’s space program. Based on oral histories, provided by members of the African American and Jewish communities, and by the rocketeers’ families, co-workers, friends, and neighbors, Laney’s book demonstrates how the histories of German Nazism and Jim Crow in the American South intertwine in narratives about the past. This is a critical reassessment of a singular time that links the Cold War, the Space Race, and the Civil Rights era while addressing important issues of transnational science and technology, and asking Americans to consider their country’s own history of racism when reflecting on the Nazi past.
In 1854, Wilhelm F. Kempe, 26, and his sister Auguste, 20, left their native Kingdom of Saxony in Europe for a new home in Texas. Remaining in Saxony were their aging, widowed father and a 10-year-old sister and an 8-year-old brother -- people who struggled for decades to reconcile their lives in the Old World with that of their relatives in the New World. Their letters to Wilhelm tell, often painfully, of the emotional toll this disruption took on the lives of family and friends who remained in the Fatherland. As the only connection betwen his family in Europe and his family in America, Wilhelm carried the weight of both. Over half a century he coped with all of their needs, as well as the Civil War and the desires of others who wanted to leave Europe and join him in Texas -- challenges that come alive through the letters they wrote.
A history -- the first ever -- of the abundant traditions of German-American musical theater in New York, and a treasure trove of songs and information.
Wie erklärt man den Aufstieg der USA von einer britischen Kolonie zur globalen Hegemonialmacht in einem Zeitraum von knapp 140 Jahren von der Revolution bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg? Welche Bedeutung hat dabei die nach dem Bürgerkrieg einsetzende forcierte „Nationsbildung“, die im Kontext der Besiedelung des Westens, der Etablierung eines kapitalistischen Systems à l’Américaine, der Ausbildung eines sich von Europa deutlich unterscheidenden Systems der Regulierung von Arbeit und Kapital, der nicht Durchsetzbarkeit sozialistischer Ideen und der Politik des „small government“ und „laissez-faire“ stattfand? Kurz: Welche Bedeutung hatte die spezifisch amerikanische Entwicklung mit ...