John Steinbeck

2022 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Public Support ◽  
John Steinbeck ◽  
World War ◽  
Grapes Of Wrath ◽  
The Government

John Steinbeck’s life was framed by global conflict. Born on 27 February 1902, in Salinas, California, he was twelve years old when World War I began and sixteen when Germany and the Allies signed an armistice bringing to cessation the “War to End All Wars.” Unfortunately, World War II began in 1939. Echoes of the rise of Adolf Hitler and threats of war occur throughout his early works, as in the journals accompanying The Grapes of Wrath (1939), in which he writes of the angst of his times, fearing the inevitably approaching conflict. When World War II came, he became involved in the wartime efforts, working as a correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune and experiencing the London Blitz, with sixty-six of his eighty-five dispatches gathered in Once There Was a War (1958). Recognizing Steinbeck’s expertise as a writer and desiring to enlist public support, the government commissioned him to write Bombs Away (1942), an account of a bomber team and its specially equipped plane. Hence, he observed American airmen as they trained and went into battle, flying on forays with them. Similarly, during the Vietnam War Newsday hired him as a war correspondent, and again he went to the front and into battle with the enlisted men, with his accounts collected in Letters to Alicia (1965). On the home front, the San Francisco News commissioned him to report on Dust Bowl migrants working as harvesters in California. Incensed by what he witnessed—the specter of starvation, babies and children dying, and malnutrition taking a toll on the very humanity of the migrants—he wrote The Harvest Gypsies (1936), background for The Grapes of Wrath. An early ecologist, Steinbeck loved the land, depicting the earth as a living, sensate character in The Grapes of Wrath—an elegiac mourning over its the desecration. Later, his nonfiction America and Americans (1966) decried pollution and the felling of redwood trees. Looking into the future with some hope but much trepidation, this work also addressed ethnic and racial prejudices, questionable politics, ageism and sexism, loss of ethical moorings. Believing his country to be infested with a deadly immorality, he warned Americans to root out this cancerous growth in order to survive. His last work of fiction, The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), carried these same concerns, with protagonist Ethan Allen Hawley portrayed as an Every American, who must rise above his failings. John Steinbeck died 20 December 1968, of congestive heart failure.

The Political History of American Food Aid

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Riley
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Food Aid ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Agriculture Sector ◽  
History Of

This book discusses the 220-year history of the political and humanitarian uses of American food as a tool of both foreign and domestic policy. During these years, food aid has been used as a weapon against the expansion of bolshevism after World War I and communism after World War II, a cudgel to force policy changes by recalcitrant recipient governments, a method for balancing disputes between Israel and Egypt, a backdoor means of increasing military aid to Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, a signal of support to friendly governments, and a resource to help achieve economic development in food-insecure countries. At home, international food aid has, at times, been used to dump troublesome food surpluses abroad and has served politicians as a tool to secure the votes of farming constituents and the political support of agriculture-sector lobbyists, commodity traders, transporters, and shippers. Most important in the minds of many, it has been the most visible—and most popular—means of providing humanitarian aid to tens of millions of hungry men, women, and children confronted, on distant shores, by war, terrorism, and natural cataclysms and the resulting threat—if not the reality—of famine and death. The book investigates the little-known, not well-understood, and often highly contentious political processes that have converted fields of grains, crops of pulses, and herds of livestock into the tools of U.S. government policy.

Immigrants against the State

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenyon Zimmer
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War I ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
World War ◽  
Second Generation Immigrants ◽  
First And Second Generation ◽  
Racial Hierarchies

From the 1880s through the 1940s, tens of thousands of first- and second-generation immigrants embraced the anarchist cause after arriving on American shores. This book explores why these migrants turned to anarchism, and how their adoption of its ideology shaped their identities, experiences, and actions. The book focuses on Italians and Eastern European Jews in San Francisco, New York City, and Paterson, New Jersey. Tracing the movement's changing fortunes from the pre-World War I era through the Spanish Civil War, the book argues that anarchists, opposed to both American and Old World nationalism, severed all attachments to their nations of origin but also resisted assimilation into their host society. Their radical cosmopolitan outlook and identity instead embraced diversity and extended solidarity across national, ethnic, and racial divides. Though ultimately unable to withstand the onslaught of Americanism and other nationalisms, the anarchist movement nonetheless provided a shining example of a transnational collective identity delinked from the nation-state and racial hierarchies.

Is There a Future for New Communist States?

2021 ◽  
pp. 315-318
Author(s):  
George W. Breslauer
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Historical Imagination ◽  
World War ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
To Come

Communism was the offspring of wars: World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War. Are such wars likely in the coming decades? If not, new communist regimes on the Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist models are unlikely to come to power in the name of Marxism-Leninism. Whether that ideological heritage becomes again a beacon for revolution may depend on whether, in the future, the historical imagination comes to view communism as having been an achievement or a tragedy.

Financing Industrial Expansion for War: The Origin of the Defense Plant Corporation Leases

1949 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald T. White
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Industrial Facilities ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
War Finance ◽  
The Government ◽  
Under Construction ◽  
New Facilities

One of the recent tendencies in the United States has been the movement away from private methods of finance to finance through government agencies, a trend that has been particularly noticeable during periods of national catastrophe such as wars and depressions. In these periods we have seen, in addition to other sources of government financing, the use of the War Finance Corporation during World War I and the use on a far larger scale of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation during the Great Depression and World War II.During World War II two thirds of a total expenditure for industrial facilities of approximately $25 billion was directly financed by the government. In contrast, during the three-year period of 1917–1919, only about one tenth of the $6 billion in new facilities under construction was directly financed by the government.

"The Air is Becoming Full of War"

2005 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-366
Author(s):  
MARY ANN IRWIN
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War I ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Regional Differences ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
World War ◽  
American Jewry ◽  
Jewish Americans

This article examines the responses of Jewish San Franciscans to World War I, comparing reactions of Jewish and non-Jewish Americans and considering regional differences in the Jewish response. The primary source is the Emanu-El, San Francisco's only Jewish newspaper during the war. Comparing the San Francisco experience with that of New York, the article argues that, while San Francisco Jews shared many of their fellow citizens' feelings toward the nations at war, the �ghting in Europe raised troubling issues for Jewish Americans, as well as problems they did not share with other Americans. In key respects, region mattered more than religious identi�cation: Jewish San Franciscans tended to view the war as westerners rather than as Jews, but war exacerbated tensions within American Jewry and added urgency to leaders' efforts to create consensus, especially on such controversial issues as Zionism.

La rivoluzione nella mente: sulla storia della psicoanalisi, 1870-1945

2009 ◽  
pp. 455-462
Author(s):  
George Makari
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
Freudian Theory ◽  
New Synthesis ◽  
The Creation ◽  
New Community ◽  
The Way

- In opposition to the traditional historiography of psychoanalysis, based essentially on biographies, the creation of psychoanalysis is seen as both a body of ideas and a movement that can be better understood by focusing on the way this field constituted itself, broke apart, and then rebuilt itself prior to World War II. Outlining the argument of the author's book, Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), it is argued that a distinct Freudian theory emerged from Freud's engagements with three pre-existing fields: French psychopathology, German biophysics/psychophysics, and sexology. As Freud pulled them together in an new synthesis, followers from these fields found their way to him. But a series of schisms shattered Freud's fragile movement. After World War I, a new community emerged that was more "psychoanalytic" than "Freudian". It placed less emphasis on Freud's authority, and instead emphasized technique and professionalization. World War II led to the destruction of these communities and sparked battles for control in the two major centers that remained, London and New York.

Japanese Empire and Pan-Asianism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sven Saaler
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
World War ◽  
The North ◽  
Japanese Colonial ◽  
The Japanese Archipelago ◽  
The Government ◽  
Historical Memories

The Japanese colonial empire was composed of territories adjacent to the Japanese archipelago, ranging from Southern Sakhalin in the north to Taiwan in the south. Unlike most European powers, Japan did not acquire colonial territories that were far away from the metropolis; rather, it did so within the region in which it was located—East Asia. The geographical proximity between the metropolis and its colonial territories influenced not only the structure of the colonial administration, racial hierarchies in the empire, and colonial and metropolitan identities but also the rhetorical strategies that were used to legitimize colonial rule. Although the government generally envisioned a European-style empire, the creation of which would earn Japan the respect of the Great Powers and eventually lead to the recognition of Japanese equality, a significant number of politicians, writers, and activists argued that it was Japan’s mission to unite the Asian people and protect or liberate them from Western colonial rule. These discourses have been summarized under the term “Pan-Asianism,” a movement and an ideology that emerged in the late 19th century and became mainstream by the time World War I began. However, although some advocates of Pan-Asianism were motivated by sincere feelings of solidarity, the expansion of Japanese colonial rule and the escalation of war in China and throughout Asia in the 1930s brought to the fore an increasing number of contradictions and ambiguities. By the time World War II started, Pan-Asianism had become a cloak of Japanese expansionism and an instrument to legitimize the empire, a process that culminated in the Greater East Asia Conference of 1943. The contradictions between Japan’s brutal wars in Asia and the ideology of Asian solidarity continue to haunt that country’s relations with its neighbors, by way of ambiguous historical memories of the empire and war in contemporary Japanese politics and society.

scholarly journals Inženiera Jāņa Jagara (1894–1970) profesionālā un sabiedriskā darbība

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 103-124
Author(s):  
Indulis Zvirgzdiņš
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Assistant Professor ◽  
World War ◽  
Construction Design ◽  
The Government ◽  
City Construction ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
In The Beginning

Pētījums atklāj inženiera Jāņa Jagara (1894–1970) dzimtas un viņa darbības daudzpusību 20. gadsimtā. Viņš studējis Rīgas Politehniskajā institūtā (RPI), Pirmā pasaules kara laikā uzturējies Krievijā. Pēc atgriešanās Latvijā 1919. gada sākumā absolvējis Baltijas Tehnisko augstskolu (BTA), kas bija nodibināta uz RPI bāzes. J. Jagars darbojās Latvijas Sociāldemokrātiskajā strādnieku partijā (LSDSP), ar tās atbalstu kļuva par Rīgas pilsētas Būvvaldes vadītāju, pēc Kārļa Ulmaņa (1877–1942) organizētā valsts apvērsuma tika apcie¬tināts, pēc tam – atbrīvots un vadījis inženieru biroju, 1940. gada jūnijā iekļauts Augusta Kirhenšteina (1872–1963) vadītajā valdībā, ieņemot satiksmes ministra amatu. Otrā pasaules kara laikā evakuējies uz Padomju Krieviju. Pēc kara J. Ja¬gars bija Latvijas Valsts universitātes (LVU) docents, strādāja dažādos celtniecī¬bas projektēšanas institūtos. The research reveals facts about the family of engineer Jānis Jagars (1894– 1970) and the versatility of his work in the 20th century. He studied at Riga Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and stayed in Russia during World War I. After returning to Latvia in the beginning of 1919, he graduated from the Baltic Technical University (BTU; Baltische Technische Hochschule, also Baltic Higher Technical School), which was established on the basis of RPI. J. Jagars participated in the activities of the Latvian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (LSDWP), which supported his becoming the Head of the Riga City Construction Board. After the coup organized by Kārlis Ulmanis (1877–1942) he was arrested, then – released, after which he headed an engineering office. In June 1940, he joined the government headed by Augusts Kirhenšteins (1872–1963), where he held the position of Minister of Transport. He evacuated to the Soviet Russia during World War II. After the war, J. Jagars was an Assistant Professor at the State University of Latvia (SUL) and worked in various construction design institutes.

The memorial’s arc: Between Berlin’s Denkmal and New York City’s 9/11 Memorial

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E Young
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Vietnam Veterans ◽  
World War ◽  
Ground Zero ◽  
Vietnam Veterans Memorial ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Post War ◽  
Negative Form

Without direct reference to the Holocaust or its contemporary “counter-monuments,” Michael Arad’s design for the National 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero is nonetheless inflected by an entire post-war generation’s formal preoccupation with loss, absence, and regeneration. This is also a preoccupation they share with post-Holocaust poets, philosophers, artists, and composers: how to articulate a void without filling it in? How to formalize irreparable loss without seeming to repair it? In this article, I imagine an arc of memorial forms over the last 70 years or so and how, in fact, post-World War I and World War II memorials have evolved along a discernible path, all with visual and conceptual echoes of their predecessors. As Maya Lin’s design for the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial was informed by earlier World War I and even World War II memorial vernaculars, her design also broke the mold that made Holocaust counter-memorials and other negative-form memorials possible.

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