TOP-DOWN RELIGION AND THE DESIGN OF POST-WORLD WAR II AMERICAN PLURALISM

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 233-243
Author(s):  
R. LAURENCE MOORE
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
American Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Component ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
World War ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Islamic Movements ◽  
The Subject

Academics are falsely rumored to have a low regard for religion. Although Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, authors of The God Delusion and God Is Not Great, respectively, made atheism a best-selling subject in the United States, it is not coincidental that Hitchens and Dawkins are English. They were educated in a country where a strident antipathy toward religion is not unpatriotic. American atheists with as much brass are rare. Kicking religion around cannot be an American sport because, from colonial to contemporary times, religion has been a central component of American culture. To be sure, a lot of scholarly criticism has been directed at right-wing Christian and Islamic movements. But scholars whose personal views on faith incline them to echo Hitchens's mordant formula that “religion poisons everything” should probably look for a country other than the United States to study. The recent books of historians and sociologists of American religion have taken a tone toward the subject that has ranged from gentle to friendly.

Americans All: World War II and the Shaping of American Identity

1981 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Gleason
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Identity ◽  
World War ◽  
American Life ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
The Subject ◽  
General Studies ◽  
Wartime Experience

Although it is four decades since the United States entered World War II, some aspects of the nation's wartime experience are still virtually unstudied. Military and diplomatic historians have labored productively for many years, but historians interested in American social and intellectual developments are just beginning to turn their attention to the wartime era. Recent general studies by Richard Polenberg and John M. Blum are especially welcome since, by drawing greater attention to the period, they should stimulate further research. There is much left to be done because the war affected practically every dimension of American life. The present essay deals with one of its less obvious effects —the way in which it shaped the thinking of a whole generation on the subject of American identity.

The United States, Italy, and the Opening to the Left, 1953–1963

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 36-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leopoldo Nuti
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Test Case ◽  
World War ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Cold War

Drawing on newly declassified U.S. and Italian documentation, this article as-sesses U.S. policy toward Italy under the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations and uses this test case to draw some general conclusions about the nature of U.S. -Italian relations during the Cold War. The first part of the article focuses on issues that have been neglected or misinterpreted in the existing literature on the subject, and the second part presents some of the lessons that can be learned from the study of U.S. -Italian relations in the 1950s and 1960s. The aim is to cast broader light on the current debate about the role and influence of the United States in Western Europe after World War II.

The Liberal Consensus Reconsidered

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Lively Debate ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of

The paradigm of the “liberal consensus” has critically shaped scholarly understanding of the United States during the two decades after World War II. Both influential and controversial, it remains the subject of lively debate among scholars seeking to explain the political and social transformations of that era. Some historians contest the existence of consensus in post-1945 America, while others employ the term—sometimes unreflectively—as a shorthand descriptor of the contemporary mood. In contrast, this book argues that a revised, nuanced, and dynamic definition of consensus liberalism provides a compelling way to appreciate how the vitality of the postwar economy and the external challenges of the early Cold War shaped the United States in profound ways, both politically and socially.

Bones of Contention: China’s World War II Military Graves in India, Burma, and Papua New Guinea

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linh D. Vu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Chinese State ◽  
International Status

Abstract Exploring the construction and maintenance of Nationalist Chinese soldiers’ graves overseas, this article sheds light on post-World War II commemorative politics. After having fought for the Allies against Japanese aggression in the China-Burma-India Theater, the Chinese expeditionary troops sporadically received posthumous care from Chinese veterans and diaspora groups. In the Southeast Asia Theater, the Chinese soldiers imprisoned in the Japanese-run camps in Rabaul were denied burial in the Allied war cemetery and recognition as military heroes. Analyzing archival documents from China, Taiwan, Britain, Australia, and the United States, I demonstrate how the afterlife of Chinese servicemen under foreign sovereignties mattered in the making of the modern Chinese state and its international status.

Do We Need a Postmodern Anthropology for Mission in a Postcolonial World?

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Rynkiewich
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
World War ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cross Fertilization

Abstract There was a time when mission studies benefitted from a symbiotic relationship with the social sciences. However, it appears that relationship has stagnated and now is waning. The argument is made here, in the case of cultural anthropology both in Europe and the United States, that a once mutually beneficial though sometimes strained relationship has suffered a parting of the ways in recent decades. First, the article reviews the relationships between missionaries and anthropologists before World War II when it was possible to be a ‘missionary anthropologist’ with a foot in both disciplines. In that period, the conversation went two ways with missionary anthropologists making important contributions to anthropology. Then, the article reviews some aspects of the development of the two disciplines after World War II when increasing professionalism in both disciplines and a postmodern turn in anthropology took the disciplines in different directions. Finally, the article asks whether or not the conversation, and thus the cross-fertilization, can be restarted, especially since the youngest generation of anthropologists has recognized the reality of local Christianities in their fields of study.

The German Problem: 1945–1950

1968 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Epstein
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
World War ◽  
Narrative History ◽  
German Question ◽  
The Future

Schwarz's study Vom Reich zur Bundesrepublik is, in the opinion of this reviewer, the single most important book on the occupation studyperiod in Germany after World War II that has yet appeared. It is not an ordinary narrative history—indeed, it presupposes a good deal of prior knowledge—but is rather a topical analysis of the following problems: the various possible solutions to the German question in the years after 1945; the policies toward Germany of the four victorious powers—Russia, France, Britain, and the United States; the development of German attitudes on the future political orientation of one or two Germanies; and finally, the factors that led to the voluntary acceptance of Western integration by most West Germans even though this integration meant the partition of Germany.

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