Ambassador David Bruce and “LBJ's War”: Vietnam Viewed from London, 1963–1968

Recent decades have seen growing historical interest in “second rank” officials who, whilst they do not play a leading role in government or political movements, can influence the way decisions are shaped and executed. At the same time, the interest of scholars in American policy during the Vietnam War shows no signs of abating. This article investigates the experience of one second rank official during the war, David Bruce, who was Ambassador to London during 1961–1969. Making particular use of Bruce's extensive diaries, it traces his shifting views on the war, looks at the extent to which he shared the outlook of other official,s and asks what influence, if any, he had on events. It argues that, whilst he always remained loyal to his own government and often mirrored the outlook of the Johnson Administration, Bruce had his own perspective on events, was consistently critical of American tactics on the ground, and, in Spring 1967, influenced by Robert McNamara, became an early advocate of retrenchment.     

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Adopting Open Educational Resources in an Introductory American Government Course

In this article, we present findings from a grant-funded initiative to replace traditional, proprietary textbooks with an open content textbook under a Creative Commons license in the introductory American government course (POLS 1101) at Middle Georgia State University. We find that the use of an open content textbook led to somewhat negative effects on student learning outcomes and student course satisfaction, although the associated lower textbook cost increased textbook accessibility to students. We conclude with some suggestions to those adopting textbooks in this course and to the wider discipline regarding measures that may lead to more unequivocally positive outcomes than those experienced in this study.     

Subaltern Resistance in Latin America: A Reply to Tom Brass

The focus of this article is on the strong positive correlation between landholdings and household size observed in rural India. It may be recalled that Chayanov cites some Russian data exhibiting a similar correlation as evidence in support of his theory of the life cycle and its consequences among peasant families, arguing in particular that the causation behind the correlation runs from the family size and its composition to the size of landholdings. This paper argues that in the Indian case the correlation cannot possibly arise from the type of dynamics posited by Chayanovian theory. The explanation lies in the differential demographic structures, including the propensity for families to remain joint or undivided, among the peasant classes, the causation running in the direction opposite to that suggested by Chayanov.