Establishing a Democratic Religion: Metaphysics and Democracy in the Debates Over the President's Commission on Higher Education

2007 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan Schrum

World War II stands as a defining moment for American higher education. During the crisis of international relations that existed by the late 1930s, American thinkers of various stripes felt compelled to mobilize the country's intellectual and educational resources in defense of democracy, thus creating “a great ideological revival of democracy that accompanied the war.” The war aims of the United States—as enunciated in the Atlantic Charter and popular portrayals of the “good war” in which the United States fought to free the world from the grips of evil dictatorships—gave tremendous legitimacy to these efforts, which built into a national discussion on the goals of higher education. Between 1943 and 1947, at least five major reports on general education or liberal education appeared, three of which explicitly treated the relation of such education to “democracy” or “free society.”

NASPA Journal ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary H. Knock

In the introduction of this book, Arthur Cohen states that The Shaping of American Higher Education is less a history than a synthesis. While accurate, this depiction in no way detracts from the value of the book. This work synthesizes the first three centuries of development of high-er education in the United States. A number of books detail the early history of the American collegiate system; however, this book also pro-vides an up-to-date account of developments and context for under-standing the transformation of American higher education in the last quarter century. A broad understanding of the book’s subtitle, Emergence and Growth of the Contemporary System, is truly realized by the reader.


2015 ◽  
pp. 23-24
Author(s):  
Richard Skinner

International education has deep historical roots and has spurred relationships that persist for decades. In the case of the United States and the field of engineering, American dependence since the mid-1960s on other countries' students – especially Indian ones – for enrollments and graduates of engineering doctoral programs has been, is and will likely continue to be significant. But long-term trends portend a time when the appeal of American higher education may be less than has been the case.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linh D. Vu

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.


2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Rynkiewich

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.


1968 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Epstein

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.


1992 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Higgs

Relying on standard measures of macroeconomic performance, historians and economists believe that “war prosperity” prevailed in the United States during World War II. This belief is ill-founded, because it does not recognize that the United States had a command economy during the war. From 1942 to 1946 some macroeconomic performance measures are statistically inaccurate; others are conceptually inappropriate. A better grounded interpretation is that during the war the economy was a huge arsenal in which the well-being of consumers deteriorated. After the war genuine prosperity returned for the first time since 1929.


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