From Partisan Warfare to Memory Battlefields: Two Women's Stories about the Second World War and Its Aftermath in Lithuania

This article explores how women fighters tell their stories in relation to the dominant state narratives about a partisan war. In addition to engaging their individual stories, it explores how they speak, write and act as memory entrepreneurs, creating collective memory about a past that they have experienced instead of allowing others to select actors and events for historical narratives. It argues that memory regimes and gender cultures are intertwined, and that gender cultures are essential in understanding the cultural choices made by memory entrepreneurs in memory making. The article analyses the oral testimonies and written memoirs of two women, Rakhel’ Margolis and Aldona Vilutien? (neé Sabaityt?), who were partisans in Lithuania during the Second World War (Margolis) and its aftermath (Vilutien?) and created the first museums dealing with the Second World War and its legacy in post‐Soviet Lithuania. Read as stories about what it was like to be a woman during a partisan war, the narratives include some common themes: widespread betrayal, the difficult physical conditions that they had to endure as women and the vulnerability that came with these experiences. Read as stories told by memory entrepreneurs, the narratives reveal that the two women acted as mnemonic warriors fighting for competing memory regimes built on opposing gender ideologies.     

越南华裔在美国的生存与适应

根据散落于相关研究文献和数据中有关越南华裔的资料,对1975年以后华裔逃离越南并定居美国的历史过程、生活适应、地位获得和族群认同等方面的大致状况作一个梳理,旨在加强越南华裔问题研究。结果表明,两次移民潮中,抵达美国的越南华裔难民约30-50万人,寻找亲人、取得族裔社区的支持和族裔聚居区的形成成为应对政府分散安置政策的方案;文化适应与经济成就落后于越南裔,但近20多年来取得了一些值得称道的成就;其族群认同建构于以共同的原居住地、居住国为背景和多元文化的基础之上。结论是,越南华裔还没有完全融入其他美国华裔之中,而是形成了一个既认同于美国华裔、又与越南裔有一定联系的相对独立的华人“次族群”。     

The Spanish American War’s ‘Most Durable Hero’: Admiral Pasquale Cervera and Popular Heroic Values in the United States, 1898–1909

The United States honored a host of military heroes during the Spanish American War including Pasqual Cervera y Topete, the enemy admiral who had experienced a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Santiago Bay, Cuba (3 June 1898) at the hands of US naval forces. Over the course of the war and in the year that followed, American public opinion of the admiral became positive and increasingly laudatory. By late 1899, Life Magazine, followed by other popular publications, claimed that Cervera was a better war hero then Admiral George Dewey and other American officers who had been wildly celebrated for their wartime heroics. The enemy admiral’s heroic rise was possible because of a fundamental change in the relationship between the press and the nation’s war heroes that sped up each champion’s ultimate decline. In the late nineteenth century Americans sought chivalrous, selfless men of action for their heroes. As journalists began covering each war hero’s daily life as they did other celebrities, however, they discovered character flaws in the nation’s homegrown champions. This examination of Cervera’s gradual rise as an American hero through his death in 1909 includes an overview of the American hero-making process and lifecycle and how celebrity journalism shortened the reign of most war heroes. After identifying the complicated set of values the nation sought in its war heroes at the end of the century, this study will also explain why journalists considered naval heroes as better representatives of those cherished ideals than those from the Army (including volunteer Theodore Roosevelt) until well after the end of the war. Roosevelt was honored as a hero during the war and won the 1899 New York gubernatorial election largely because of his wartime popularity, but was not considered selfless because of his clear political ambitions. American hero-worship of Cervera developed slowly, was considerably more subdued than the public enthusiasm displayed for America’s native-born champions, and was undoubtedly bestowed, in part, as a criticism of the failure of American heroes to live up to the heroic narrative created for them by reporters and biographers. Cervera’s ranking as Life’s ‘most durable hero’ of the war, while seemingly nonsensical, begins to make more sense when the Spanish admiral is reconfigured as a national cultural hero instead of an American military champion. Despite his enemy status, Cervera came to epitomise important military values of the day, because of the rapid decline of the nation’s American-born war heroes brought about by celebrity journalism.     

Lyndon Johnson's war? Part 2: from escalation to negotiation

IThis second article on the Johnson administration's policy towards the war in Vietnam, based on published American documents, covers the period from July 1965 to March 1968. Although it is now clear that the Communist forces in Vietnam encountered considerable difficulties as a result of the steadily growing commitment of US ground forces, the Americans encountered difficulties of their own: notably the problem of persuading their South Vietnamese ally to implement what they regarded as the necessary political and military policies; and the increasing criticism of the war at home. The bombing of North Vietnam was a key issue for the administration. While the president's military advisers were continually pressing for further escalation, most of the civilians were sceptical. The latter felt that the bombing was not achieving its principal objective of reducing the flow of men and supplies from North Vietnam into South Vietnam, was unpopular at home and abroad and, if increased, posed serious risks of Chinese and Russian involvement. Although the bombing was temporarily halted or restricted more than once during this period in an attempt to facilitate a negotiated settlement, nothing was achieved. On 1 November 1967 Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's growing disillusionment with the war prompted him to send a lengthy memorandum to President Johnson arguing for the cessation of the bombing of the North and the stabilization of the American effort in the South. Rejected at the time, this policy was partially implemented as a result of the Communist Tet offensive of February 1968, when countrywide attacks were beaten back after failing to trigger the expected popular uprising against the Americans and the South Vietnamese government, while at the same time producing a surge of hostility to the war in the United States. Three men‐McNamara's successor, Clark Clifford, Secretary of State Dean Rusk and White House aid Harry McPherson‐were largely responsible for persuading President Johnson to accept the fact that the war could not continue on the same basis as before and that de‐escalation was a better option. The president rejected the military's request for a huge increase in the number of US troops and, on 31 March 1968, announced a halt to the bombing north of the 20 th parallel and called for immediate peace talks. He also surprised the nation and his advisers by declaring that he would not run for the presidency in the election due in November 1968, preferring to concentrate on the search for peace during the remainder of his period in office.     

Writing for Immediacy: Narrative Writing as a Teaching Technique in Undergraduate Cultural Geography

Narrative inquiry is an innovative means of encouraging students to internalize concepts, reflect on experiences or create applications for theoretical ideas. The use of first-person creative writing in a second-year cultural geography course prompted initial scepticism from students but eventually highlighted their constructivist engagement with course concepts. Despite a number of ethical, evaluative and moral dilemmas, encouraging the use of creative writing as a form of narrative inquiry allowed students to tell their stories so that they were valued and connected to wider disciplinary concepts.     

‘A Billion Dollar Racket’: the United States,South Vietnam,and Global Currency Manipulation during War, 1968–9

While most historians have discussed corruption as a key factor leading to South Vietnam's downfall, they have not fully analysed the US and international dimensions of South Vietnamese corruption. This article argues that economic, political, and diplomatic circumstances of the Vietnam War encouraged widespread US participation in currency manipulation, an economically destructive form of corruption that had serious implications for the stability of the South Vietnamese state. The US inability to shape South Vietnam's setting of the official exchange rate allowed South Vietnam to overvalue the piaster at the cost of US taxpayers. Combined with the structural economic problems produced by the war, such as inflation, the favourable exchange rate encouraged Americans, Vietnamese, Indians, Chinese, Koreans, and other internationals to make quick profits through illegal transactions. From bookstores in Saigon to banks in Hong Kong, Dubai, and New York, currency manipulation involved a host of individuals and organisations around the globe. Although many critics of the war cited South Vietnamese corruption in their arguments for US withdrawal, congressional investigation into currency manipulation revealed that without the direct contributions of US soldiers and civilians, the magnitude of illegal economic transactions would not have existed as it did.     

Narrative Trauma and Civil War History Painting,or Why Are These Pictures So Terrible?

The Civil War generated hundreds of history paintings. Yet, as this essay argues, painters failed to create any iconic, lasting images of the Civil War using the conventions of grand manner history painting, despite the expectations of many that they would and should. This essay first examines the terms by which I am evaluating this failure, then moves on to a consideration of the American history painting tradition. I next examine several history paintings of Civil War scenes in light of this tradition and argue that their "failure" to capture the meaning and essence of the war resulted from a breakdown of the narrative conventions of history painting. Finally, I glance briefly at Winslow Homer's Civil War scenes, arguably the only ones which have become canonical, and suggest that the success of these images comes from their abandonment of old conventions and the invention of new ones.     

Promoting solidarity at home and abroad: the goals and tactics of the anti-Vietnam War movement in Britain

This article explores the nature, tactics and effectiveness of the vocal anti-Vietnam war movement in Britain. It focuses on the rhetoric and actions of a range of different groups, from the far-Left Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, to the broad-Left British Council for Peace in Vietnam and the labour movement. It asks how far the anti-war opposition was able to shape both government policy and public debate on the war, and positions the British opposition within its wider global anti-war context. It explores the meanings of solidarity (with the American, or global, anti-war movement or with the North Vietnamese) for the British movement, and it highlights the ultimately domestic focus of the campaign.     

War stories: British and American writers in/on the Italian front (1915–18)

In 1919 the British historian G. M. Trevelyan complained about the ‘not very large stock of English literature on Italy’s part in the war’ that had just ended, a phenomenon he attributed to ‘the mutual ignorance of the English-speaking and Italian peoples’. Nearly a hundred years later the situation seems to be no better. Secondary sources as there are devote only passing mention (if any) to the war stories that were put together by British and American writers who visited, served or worked as volunteers in the Italian front between 1915 and 1918. This article intends to give some details about the Italian front writing of these committed individuals, whose praiseworthy contribution to the war effort was, indeed, fighting the above-mentioned ignorance.     

Politicians,Merchants, and Colonial Maritime War: The Political and Economic Background of the American Act of 1708

During the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–13), there were attempts to support colonial maritime war by legislation, and the American Act of 1708 can be seen as their culmination. Historians who study privateering or colonial history have referred to this act in several contexts, such as reform in prize administration, naval impressment in American colonies, and Spanish‐American trade. However, the political and economic interests behind this act have not been fully investigated. By examining the process of the enactment of the American Act together with antecedent attempts to promote colonial maritime war in parliament, this article reveals the political and vested interests involved in the act, the relations between them, and the influence they had on the content of the act. This analysis will show the complex interaction between politics, trade, and colonial maritime war in the early‐18th‐century American colonies.     

Single Working-class Women and the City in Java and Vietnam

Through investigation into the lives of single migrant women who work as department store salesgirls in Surabaya and Ho Chi Minh City, this paper suggests that while commonalities exist with regard to their controlled use of beauty in the workplace, their lack of time and disposable income, and the temporary nature of their right to live in their respective cities as migrants, there are significant differences between them. These differences run contrary to conventional stereotypes of the “outspoken” Javanese woman and the “servile” Vietnamese woman, which in turn are based on stereotypes of the bilateral Southeast Asian kinship tradition and the patrilineal East Asian kinship tradition respectively. Taking into account the forces for and against conservative gender relations in both societies, this paper suggests that it is the Vietnamese working-class woman who exercises more power over how she lives in the city.     

Leaving Vietnam: Nixon,Kissinger and Ford, 1969–1975. Part one: January 1969–January 1972

Some have suggested that Richard Nixon's narrow victory in the US presidential election of November 1968 was due to his persuading the Government of South Vietnam (GVN) to boycott the Paris peace talks for the settlement of the Vietnam War between the US government, that of the Democratic Republic of North Vietnam (DRV) and the representatives of the communist guerrilla movement in South Vietnam. This seems doubtful. The new president had abandoned the hawkish stance he had adopted when vice‐president in the Eisenhower administration and was anxious to bring the unpopular war to an end. The question was: how? The president, together with his influential National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, adopted a policy of ‘Vietnamization’, which involved the progressive scaling down of the US military presence and the handing over of responsibility for waging the war to the GVN. At the same time, the president recognized that too precipitate an American withdrawal and, above all, one which took place under the terms of an agreement which was too favourable to the communists, would have a deleterious effect upon its allies and its own position as a Great Power. In order to bring about a satisfactory agreement with the DRV, the US employed a twin strategy: secret talks between Kissinger and senior DRV representatives in Paris, coupled with veiled threats of an escalation of the war if the communists acted unreasonably and occasional displays of military strength, such as the incursion into Cambodia in 1970. Although it seemed, briefly, that there might be a breakthrough in Kissinger's secret negotiations with the DRV later in 1971, they broke down mainly as a result of the communists' insistence that the US in effect dismantle the South Vietnamese government for them. An angry Nixon secretly considered retaliation against the DRV to force it to modify its demands and publicly revealed the existence of the negotiations and much of their content to the American people in a speech on 25 January 1972. At the same time, however, he insisted that Vietnamization would continue.     

Now More than Ever: Terrorism,Asymmetric Warfare,and the Just War Tradition

Abstract

For more than fifteen hundred years, the just war tradition has provided guidance about when wars should and should not be fought. It has also incorporated standards for how wars should be fought. The tradition rejects the claim that all use of force is evil, suggesting instead that in some circumstances the failure to use force is wrong. War is never desirable, but sometimes it is both right and necessary. The just war tradition helps us understand when this is true. The tradition developed to help control conventional warfare, but it is no less applicable to the terrorism and asymmetrical warfare prevalent in contemporary conflicts. In a world where American military power is unmatched, any opponent's best option is some form of asymmetric warfare. Such warfare is frustrating to conventional forces and tempts them to respond with an "all's fair in war" approach that is both morally wrong and militarily counterproductive. Neither pacifism nor "realism" deals adequately with the challenges of twenty-first century warfare. Only the just war tradition provides clear guidance about when and how it is right to go to war and places this in the context of establishing a peace based on justice and equity.     

"The very model of modern urban decay": outsiders' narratives of industry and urban decline in Gary, Indiana

In the eyes of many, the steel city of Gary, Indiana, entered a period of decline in the middle of the twentieth century. The once great city was seemingly racked by job loss, crime, racial division, or moral decay. Which of these caused the decline of the city depended upon the perspective of the story's teller. Each narrative of decline contained a different moment where the city went wrong and it began to decay. For some it was the moral decay of the 1950s, for others it was the rise of black power and politics in the 1960s, for still others it was the white backlash against civil rights in the 1970s. Some saw a microcosm of America, some saw a dangerous cauldron of race and ethnicity. The source of decline and the origins of the urban crisis were largely in the eye of the beholder. The stories people chose to tell about Gary mattered because for much of the twentieth century, Gary was at the center of American narratives about industrialism. These were outsider narratives of decline read onto the Indiana steel city because Gary represented larger debates. People read onto Gary their changing expectations and anxieties about industry and industrial spaces. This article traces the changing attitudes outsiders held toward Gary from the middle of the twentieth century through the period of deindustrialization at the end of the century and examines American narratives about deindustrialization and urban decline.     

Citizens and soldiers: party competition and the debate in Pennsylvania over permitting soldiers to vote, 1861–64

Political historians of the Civil War era frequently downplay the role of the Democratic Party. Studies of the Democrats in wartime often describe the loyal opposition as able to do little more than react to the policies of the Republicans in power. This has been particularly true regarding the debate over whether or not soldiers should be allowed to vote. Most historians assume that Republicans supported permitting soldiers to vote because it was the patriotic, ‘right’ thing to do, and that Democrats then opposed soldier voting because soldier suffrage bills were Republican war measures and because the Democrats believed the Union army would vote overwhelmingly Republican. In point of fact, the Democrats developed their arguments against soldier voting before the Republicans developed their position in favor of it. Moreover, the Democratic position was rooted in deeply held beliefs, dating back to seventeenth‐century England. Democrats opposed permitting soldiers to vote because they believed soldier voting would destroy the republican liberty of American citizens.     

Empire and Cultures of Militarism in Canada and the United States

While Canadians have been described as an “unmilitary people,” their historic affections for empire have contributed to a conspicuous reluctance to criticize past military exploits. A tradition of anti-imperialism, meanwhile, has colored American attitudes to war, and produced a powerful current of antiwar sentiment throughout US history – even as that nation developed into a dominant imperial power. This essay finds the source of these national discrepancies in the founding myths of each country and in subsequent demographic, economic, strategic, and ideological transformations which have both reinforced and challenged each nation's traditional responses to empire. The result is a relationship between war, imperialism, and national identity that is multifaceted, often paradoxical, and in certain instances, surprisingly antiquated.     

Forging the nation as an imagined community

This article examines the ways in which young Canadians represent the ‘the War on Terror’ in their narratives. I explore how a hegemonic nationalist narrative enters into this representation in different ways and positions itself in a dynamic tension with the USA, at times eliding the difference and at times affirming it. I illustrate that these students do not simply tell the narrative of the war, but use the deixis of ‘we/us/our’ or ‘them/they/their’ in a way that constructs multiple imagined communities. I argue that these presumably benign representations of Canadian involvement in the war produce banal nationalism that excludes ‘others’, and binds human imagination into a framework that works against critical thinking.     

Blurred lines: the home front,the battlefront,and the wartime relationship between citizens and government in the Republic of Vietnam

In the Republic of Vietnam, the blending of the home and battle fronts shaped the relationship between citizens and their government. Civilians viewed the national government as the institution responsible for various forms of social welfare related to the war and the resulting militarisation of non-combatants’ lives. An examination of citizens’ letters to its ministries shifts the focus from questions of political legitimacy to citizens’ expectations of their government. The role of gender in family and social structures also shaped how Vietnamese civilians perceived their war experiences and their relationships to the government.