2. The struggle for military professionalism

2020 ◽  
pp. 24-51
Author(s):  
Joseph T. Glatthaar
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Military Culture ◽  
Military Power ◽  
West Point ◽  
The West ◽  
American Military ◽  
The Military ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
Military Professionalism

“The struggle for military professionalism” looks at the positive effect of the West Point Academy on American military expertise and the improved sense of professionalism among its graduating classes. During the American Civil War, non-graduates could make more progress in the military. The Union Army’s victory stemmed from their ability to convert their superior manpower and technology into military power. After the war, the Army and Navy suffered crises of mission. A curriculum was founded for the Navy, but at the end of the nineteenth century the Army and Navy were still not professionalized. The Navy lacked structure, and the Army had structure but suffered from an outdated military culture.

Thomas Wright Blakiston

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-40
Author(s):  
Kirsten A. Greer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Mediterranean Region ◽  
Military Culture ◽  
Crimean War ◽  
British Military ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Military ◽  
At Home

Chapter 2 examines the production of the scientific war hero in British military culture in the mid-nineteenth century, with an emphasis on the Crimean War (1853–56) as an important event in securing Britain’s ascendency over Russian aspirations in the Mediterranean region, and in the emergence of the military-scientific hero. The chapter also highlights the military-scientific hero as a product of conducting fieldwork in the Crimean theater of war and collecting specimens as scientific trophies of war for a British audience at home. Here, the focus is on Ordnance officer Captain Thomas Wright Blakiston, Royal Artillery, who collected numerous birds while serving with his regiments, published works in the Zoologist, and sent specimens to British museums, including the Museum of the Royal Artillery Institution at Woolwich.

scholarly journals The Protracted Civil War in Libya: The Role of Outside Powers

2020 ◽  
pp. 11-27
Author(s):  
Yahia H. Zoubir
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
The West ◽  
Specific Interests ◽  
The Military ◽  
2012 Election

The collapse of the Muammar Qaddafi regime was ostensibly the prelude to a democratic Libya. The 2012 election elicited much optimism. By 2014, the domestic situation had taken an unexpected turn for the worse, resulting in two governments, one in the east and one in the west, each supported by numerous militias. While the civil war has pitted Libyans against Libyans, foreign interventions on behalf of opposite side in the conflict have hindered the end of the civil war. Indisputably, foreign interference had begun well before the civil war; however, the military backing to the protagonists has become more pronounced since 2014. The foreign powers involved in the Libyan conflict aim to fulfill specific interests, some of which deriving from the rivalries between those countries. Unless those foreign powers have achieved their goals in Libya, an end to the civil war anytime soon remains unlikely, occasional ceasefires notwithstanding.

8. Military power and US foreign policy

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth A. Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
American Military ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The U.S

This chapter explores the relationship between American military power and foreign policy. It also considers important debates regarding containment, deterrence, preemption, and the limits of military power. The chapter begins with a discussion of the rise of American military power during the period 1945–91, focusing on the military implications of containment and deterrence as well as the role of deterrence in ending the arms race. It then examines the fundamental questions that the United States had to confront in the post-Cold War era regarding its role in the world and its military power; for example, whether nuclear weapons are still useful, and for what purpose the U.S. military should be deployed. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the U.S. response to terrorism, with particular emphasis on the U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan (2001) and the war in Iraq (2003).

Western Views in Eastern Parlors: The Contribution of the Stereograph Photographer to the Conquest of the West

Prospects ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 55-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard N. Masteller
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Cross Section ◽  
American Studies ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Large Cross Section ◽  
The West ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Alfred Stieglitz ◽  
Scientific American

If students of American Studies have seen fit to mention the stereograph at all in their discussions of the Victorian era, they have tended to treat it as a toy, intent on images of another sort or on data more arcane than the parlor images so popular in the last five decades of the nineteenth century. But the production and sales figures for stereographs, the frequent advertisements for them, and the discussions about them throughout the second half of the century in such photographic journals as The Philadelphia Photographer and in cultural organs ranging from Scientific American to the Atlantic Monthly to Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper suggest that they were more than a fad. Hermann Vogel, the internationally respected German professor of photochemistry and teacher of Alfred Stieglitz, echoed one merchandiser's slogan when he declared in 1883, “I think there is no parlor in America where there is not a stereoscope.” Students of American culture should carefully consider Vogel's remark; especially in view of its unusual distinction as both an image and an artifact, the stereograph functions as a valuable tool for illuminating and evaluating the tastes of a large cross-section of our population during and after the Civil War.

Two Hundred and Twenty Years of American Military Schools

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
John Alfred Coulter
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
West Point ◽  
World War ◽  
American Military ◽  
Cultural Challenges ◽  
Maritime Education ◽  
Military Schools ◽  
The Military

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the history of American military schools starting with the establishment of the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1802 through the expansion of the concept in purpose and educational level to 2020. The development of the military school model has its hero with Sylvanus Thayer of West Point. The expansion was led by Alden Partridge, Francis H. Smith, and Stephen B. Luce, who helped bring military schools to state higher education, maritime education, and private secondary education. The political, economic, and cultural challenges that faced military schools more than once caused significant numbers of schools to close, the most dramatically during and after the Vietnam War. However, since that time there has occurred a resurgence with advancements made into the field of charter schools, public education, and co-education. The chapter also illustrates examples of prominent political leaders and the military contributions in the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Gulf War.

Blood and Gold: Some Main Themes in the Law in the Last Half of the Nineteenth Century

2019 ◽  
pp. 321-354
Author(s):  
Lawrence M. Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Legal System ◽  
The West ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Changing Society

This chapter discusses changes in American law during the second half of the nineteenth century, covering organic law, state constitutions, and the West. The last half of the nineteenth century was crowded with events and evolutions, the most dramatic of which was the great Civil War. In many ways, wars fundamentally disrupt the operation of the legal system. The Civil War was unusually violent, and it did unusual violence to the ordinary course of justice. It was also a constitutional crisis: the Confederate states had renounced the union, declared themselves independent, and drafted their own constitution. But the war was, in a way, only an interlude. Underneath and around it and before it and after it, vast processes were changing society in fundamental ways. Changes in American law, between 1850 and 1900, were little short of revolutionary. In many fields, the law or the practice looked very different at the end of this period, compared to the beginning.

scholarly journals The West Point History of the Civil War

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Murray
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
West Point ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document