Loss and Longing: Emotional Responses to West Indian Soldiers during the First World War

Abstract

This article traces the place of black soldiers within British military history from the 18th century to the eve of the First World War. It shows how during the war, attitudes to and representations of West Indian volunteers reflected anxieties surrounding white male efficiency.     

冷战时期美国的军事战略与军事思想

冷战时期,美国形成了为其全球战略服务的各种军事战略,包括"遏制战略"和各种核威慑战略,如大规模报复战略、灵活反应战略、限制损伤战略、确保摧毁战略、现实威慑战略、总体威慑战略、有限核威慑战略和新的灵活反应战略。与此相适应,军事思想也发生了很大的变化,强调"空军第一"、"争夺制海权"、"质量建军",并形成了新的作战思想。这些战略和军事思想使美国赢得了冷战的胜利,但是也产生了许多问题。     

Ford first? Corporate security and the US Department of War's Plant Protection Service's interior organization unit 1917–1918

The Ford Motor Company's corporate security unit is widely considered to be the prototype of in-house corporate security. Drawing on archival research, we demonstrate that beginning in 1917 and continuing through the early 1920s the US Department of War's Plant Protection Service and their interior organization units represent an early example of corporate security emanating from the public sector. The existence and character of this unit challenges the notion that Ford pioneered corporate security and the surveillance, secrecy, employee control, and pre-emptive techniques it typifies. The work of interior organization unit personnel exhibits strategies and features associated with today's professional corporate security managers. We then reflect on the implications of these findings for understanding the history of labor suppression and the origins of corporate security in the United States.     

U.S. Grand Strategy Following the George W. Bush Presidency

Debates over U.S. grand strategy have devoted a disproportionate level of attention to the War on Terror itself rather than the evolving strategic environment. Challenges including an impending shift in the balance of power, structural deficits, and divided public opinion will significantly impact the policy options available to government leaders, but they have not been adequately addressed. This article analyzes the options available for U.S. grand strategy following the George W. Bush presidency by relating key U.S. national interests with domestic and international policy constraints on the horizon. The analysis concludes that the United States must adopt a defensive grand strategy to rebuild popular consensus, to prevent further strain on the military, and to consolidate its gains in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, this strategy will require flexible coalitions, not formal international organizations, because of a significant divergence of security interests and capabilities with its European allies.     

Analysis of an ancestry using cremated old human remains from the Korean War victims

Analysis of DNA from burnt bone fragment is the very hard work for the human identification in forensic casework. In general, cremated bone with an artificial damage is more difficult to get an intact DNA than a singed one because of the chemical and biological drastic changes such as protein denaturation and destruction. In this study, we pursue the best technical approach for the minimal damage and the contamination of DNA from other factors in the preconditioning and the extraction process based on over 70 years old Korean War victim skeletal that was burnt and buried in Korean Peninsula. First of all, we removed the pollutant and the dust from the burnt bones using dental instruments, and then incubated with EDTA buffer at 25 ℃ to remove inhibitors such as calcium and mineral. In order to compare the DNA preservation ability between a pellet and a supernatant, samples are repeatedly tested to collect washed EDTA buffer several times to separate. Each of isolated materials is secondly cleaned with the organic extraction method using phenol and analyzed mtDNA sequence with the in-house method for the ancestry assay. The better discrimination ability was appeared in the supernatant than the pellet. Nevertheless, many of the forensic geneticists use a powdering method for getting more DNA, we applied EDTA buffer in the preconditioning step to eliminate every contamination. As a result, the contamination factor was efficiently removed and the ancestry was estimated as per the written information. Consequently, cremated bone is identified to belong in the D4 mtDNA haplogroup which is commonly reported in ethnic groups in Asia especially Korea. This is a preliminary study of a human identification over an ancestry analysis to give information against a mass disaster in a future. Through a higher process optimization and better analytical methods toward more remains, which are genetically difficult to analyze, will support to examine the identity of the post cremated remains.     

From colony to oil producer: US oil companies and the reshaping of labor relations in Libya during the Cold War

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the labor relations the US government and American oil companies introduced in Libya between the Suez Crisis of 1956 and the rise of Muammar Qaddafi’s regime in 1969. It argues that labor policies played a crucial role in American Cold War efforts to place Libya in the Western bloc and assure access to its oil resources. Like in other contexts, the American government relied on anti-Communist trade unions, in particular the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), to oppose radical forms of labor organizing. Bini examines the ways in which Libyan oil workers resisted the forms of segregation and discrimination introduced in oil camps and company towns, by demanding the right to redefine labor relations through trade unions, and establishing ties with other trade unions in Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria. This article shows that despite American efforts to repress Libyan trade unions, in the second half of the 1960s oil workers were a crucial force in redefining international oil politics. During the Six Day War of 1967, they constituted one of the main forces behind Libya’s support of oil nationalism and set the stage for the emergence of Qaddafi’s regime in 1969.     

Exploring the Realm of the Unconscious in Anna Kavan’s Sleep Has His House

Abstract

Sleep Has His House, one of Anna Kavan’s most radically experimental novels, appeared in Britain in 1948, in the wake of the Second World War. An objection levied at the novel on its publication was that it bore no relationship to external ‘reality’. However, this article argues that the novel’s focus on the oneiric realm, contrary to what hostile contemporary reviews claimed, does not take place in isolation of larger society. Portraying modernist, surrealist and psychoanalytical influences, the novel is namely concerned with the representation of a nocturnal realm that emphasizes the osmotic relationship between the external world and an individual’s subjectivity. Focusing on the ways in which violent images of war infiltrate the dream world, this article suggests that Sleep Has His House can in fact be understood as reflecting and responding to the pressures of British war-torn society in the mid twentieth century.     

抗日战争时期中共游击队扎根基层社会的路径

全面抗战爆发后,中共深入基层社会,并以游击战发展壮大。问题是,当时各种势力蜂拥而起,为什么最后只有中共立下足、扎下根?应该说,良好的纪律是重要原因,它培养起民众对革命的最初情感。但只有纪律是不够的,如何把情感转变为政治意识,是中共的持续努力。总体观之,中共游击队进入基层社会,经历了一个从情感到组织的演变过程,最终赢得民众拥护。     

论抗战时期桂林文化团体的生存环境

抗战时期,桂林出现大量文化团体,这与桂林独特的地理环境、社会环境、政策环境等密切相关。国民党当局对桂林文化界有扶持、鼓励的一面,也有限制、打击的一面,为文化界开展活动制造了障碍。桂系当局对“文化城”的社团大体上持鼓励、支持态度,但在有些情况下也会加以限制、打击。中国共产党为桂林“文化城”的社团提供了良好的活动空间和坚强可靠的领导。中国共产党对桂林抗战文化运动的领导,主要表现在政治思想引导、方针政策贯彻和组织机构建立等方面。另外,桂林文化团体的物质条件极为匮乏,安全环境十分恶劣。     

抗日战争时期党保持纯洁性的历史经验

党的纯洁性是先进性的前提和基础,是先进性的可靠保证。重温中国共产党在抗日战争时期保持党肌体纯洁的历史经验,特别是党在思想、作风、组织建设、构建廉洁政府等方面的理论与实践对于党在新的历史时期保持纯洁性具有很大的参考价值和借鉴意义。