Science With a Vengeance: How the Military Created the US Space Sciences after World War II

1993 ◽  
Vol 61 (9) ◽  
pp. 860-861
Author(s):  
David H. DeVorkin ◽  
Frank C. Jones
Physics Today ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 46 (7) ◽  
pp. 77-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
David H. DeVorkin ◽  
Bruce Hevly

Author(s):  
Michael E. Lynch

This biography examines the long career of Lt. Gen. Edward M. Almond, who was born to a family of modest means in rural Virginia. His early education at the Virginia Military Institute, steeped him in Confederate lore and nurtured his “can do” attitude, natural aggressiveness, demanding personality and sometimes self-serving nature. These qualities later earned him the sobriquet “Sic’em, Ned,” which stuck with him for the remainder of his career. Almond commanded the African-American 92nd Infantry Division during World War II. The division failed in combat and was re-organized, after which it contained one white, one black, and the Army’s only Japanese-American (Nisei) regiment. The years since that war have seen the glorification of the “Greatest Generation,” with all racist notions and ideas “whitewashed” with a veneer of honor. When war came to Korea, Almond commanded X Corps in the Inchon invasion, liberation of Seoul, race to the Yalu. When the Chinese entered the war and sent the US Army into retreat, Almond mounted one of the largest evacuations in history at Hungnam -- but not before the disaster at Chosin claimed the lives of hundreds of soldiers and marines. This book reveals Almond as a man who stubbornly held onto bigoted attitudes about race, but also exhibited an unfaltering commitment to the military profession. Often viewed as the “Army’s racist,” Almond reflected the attitudes of the Army and society. This book places Almond in a broader context and presents a more complete picture of this flawed man yet gifted officer.


2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 1095-1116
Author(s):  
HANS KRABBENDAM

After World War II, American evangelicals realized that the European religious landscape had been seriously damaged, causing them to begin to include Europe in their mission programs. Their initiatives reversed the established direction of things, changing the pattern of who sent and who received missionary support. The religious aid flowing from the US fell almost entirely within the masculine framing of the American state, which had so recently exerted its influence in Europe in the military, economic, and cultural spheres. This essay explains how, as a result of practical experience and general social change, gender relations in American missions came to embrace greater inclusivity. European evangelicals, in turn, were both empowered by working with the American missionaries and impacted by the American debate over the separation of male and female roles in the mission field.


2021 ◽  
pp. 59-98
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Guglielmo

Chapter 2 examines the US military’s effort to restrict Japanese Americans’ access to the nation’s fighting forces during World War II. In the navy, Japanese Americans were barred from enlisting and serving throughout the war. But the army’s restrictive policies, by contrast, changed dramatically and repeatedly over the course of the war, resulting in Japanese Americans zigging and zagging between exclusion and inclusion. At times their army access approximated that for white people; other times it was more restricted than that for black people. In the end, like African Americans, Japanese Americans were underrepresented in the military. At the same time, their enlistment barriers had their own particularities, which bespoke the variety of racisms in wartime America and its military, as well as the variety of struggles that emerged to uproot them.


2005 ◽  
Vol 127 (07) ◽  
pp. 34-36
Author(s):  
Harry Hutchinson

This article reviews the military buildup of World War II that led to victory and, by an indirect route, to a richer world. The creation of the US armaments industry is breathtaking for the speed with which it developed. After the surprise attack at the close of 1941, it did not take much time for the country to respond. Shocked by a sneak attack, Americans were able to put their love affair with the car on hold to make war machines. The entire US automotive industry converted its plants to the war effort, and much of that industrial might was devoted to building airplanes. Technologies developed for the war were quickly given civilian uses. After years of rationing and the Great Depression before that, there was plenty of demand stored up. GPS today keeps watch on truck fleets, tracks stolen cars, and serves a multitude of other civilian uses that save lives, property, and money. The Predator and other unpiloted aerial vehicles are believed to represent the future of commercial air transportation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Jenness

This paper explores the way American intellectuals depicted Sigmund Freud during the peak of popularity and prestige of psychoanalysis in the US, roughly the decade and a half following World War II. These intellectuals insisted upon the unassailability of Freud's mind and personality. He was depicted as unsusceptible to any external force or influence, a trait which was thought to account for Freud's admirable comportment as a scientist, colleague and human being. This post-war image of Freud was shaped in part by the Cold War anxiety that modern individuality was imperilled by totalitarian forces, which could only be resisted by the most rugged of selves. It was also shaped by the unique situation of the intellectuals themselves, who were eager to position themselves, like the Freud they imagined, as steadfastly independent and critical thinkers who would, through the very clarity of their thought, lead America to a more robust democracy.


Cinema’s Military Industrial Complex examines how the American military has used cinema and related visual, sonic, and mobile technologies to further its varied aims. The essays in this book address the way cinema was put to work for purposes of training, orientation, record keeping, internal and external communication, propaganda, research and development, tactical analysis, surveillance, physical and mental health, recreation, and morale. The contributors examine the technologies and types of films that were produced and used in collaboration among the military, film industry, and technology manufacturers. The essays also explore the goals of the American state, which deployed the military and its unique modes of filmmaking, film exhibition, and film viewing to various ends. Together, the essays reveal the military’s deep investment in cinema, which began around World War I, expanded during World War II, continued during the Cold War (including wars in Korea and Vietnam), and still continues in the ongoing War on Terror.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document