Potential Challenges and Opportunities in Iraq’s Future

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hemin Hussein Mirkan
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
The People ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Ancient People ◽  
Economic Violence ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
External Forces ◽  
Civilization And Barbarism ◽  
First World ◽  
Inside Out

The people of Mesopotamia are an ancient people who have experienced prosperity and poverty, authority and subjection, civilization and barbarism all together. The British, who won the first World War, were responsible for creating a new Iraq with many structural deficiencies. This inevitably led to structurally driven political, social and economic violence, which still entangles the people of Iraq. Arabs, Kurds, and other ethnoreligious minorities could not find a recipe that would glue all of Iraq together ever since [1]. The aspiration of Iraq’s ruler was always beyond the boundaries of the country, beyond nationalism. Over all previous centuries, it is hard to find a genuine nationalist who ruled Iraq with a sole focus on Iraqi’s wellbeing. They rather had supra-nationalist aspirations such as Arabism, Socialism, and currently Shi’ism [2]. This chapter tries to pinpoint the structural maladies of Iraq. Some have been created by external forces, inasmuch as Iraq has been the major arena for the bitter rivalry between the United States and Iran. However, this paper argues that main cause of the failing of Iraq as a state is manufactured by Iraqis themselves. This study uses an inside-out look at Iraq’s never-ending cycle of violence and distrust between the newly so-called “rivals” and the new “establishment.” It ultimately presents a set of recommendations pointing the way to alleviate the prolonged instability in the country.

Stowaways at Bohemia's Shores: Undocumented Emigration and People-Smuggling Networks in Interwar East Central Europe

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 564-583
Author(s):  
Allison Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The People ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Migrant Smuggling ◽  
First World

AbstractThis article investigates interwar people-smuggling networks, based in Germany and Czechoslovakia, that transported undocumented emigrants across borders from east-central Europe to northern Europe, where the travelers planned to sail to the United States. Many of the people involved in such networks in the Saxon-Bohemian borderlands had themselves been immigrants from Galicia. They had left a homeland decimated by the First World War and subsequent violence and entered societies with limited avenues to earn a living. The “othering” of these Galician immigrants became a self-fulfilling prophecy, as those on the margins of society then sought illegal ways to supplement their income. This article concludes that the poor economic conditions and threat of ongoing violence that spurred migrant clients to seek undocumented passage had driven their smugglers, who also faced social marginalization, to emigration and the business of migrant smuggling.

Image at War

Vulcan ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Siotto
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Press ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
First World ◽  
At Home

The press was well accustomed to utilizing illustrations and photographs at the start of the First World War. This widespread use of images helped the people at home to better understand a war that differed enormously from previous conflicts. Images became a powerful instrument of propaganda, but also retained their usual function in entertaining and educating the reader. In this regard, technology offered new challenges and opportunities to the press in that the novelties of warfare had to be described to the public at home and images offered immediacy and clarity, and at the same time the new weapons’ marvel, even if terrifying, caught the attention and curiosity of the reader and “sold” magazines. The ample use of illustrations and photographs depicting technology in the magazines suggests how important the role of the press was in influencing both how the public understood the events on the frontline and how difficult it was for them to comprehend the new technological warfare.

Performing National Identity in the Interwar Period: The Sarrasani Circus in Germany and Latin America

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-201
Author(s):  
Sabine Hanke
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Narratives ◽  
National Image ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The University ◽  
First World

This article examines the production and promotion of popular entertainments by the German Sarrasani Circus during the interwar period and how they were used to establish specific national narratives in Germany and Latin America. Focusing particularly on its engagement of Lakota performers, it argues that the Circus acted as an active negotiator of national concerns within and beyond Germany’s borders, and presented the group as ‘familiar natives’ in order to appeal to local and national ideas of Germanness. At the same time, it shows that the performers pursued their own interests in becoming international and cosmopolitan performers, thereby challenging the assimilation forced upon their traditions and culture by institutions in the United States. Finally, it demonstrates how foreign propaganda built on the Circus’s national image in Latin America to restore Germany’s international relations after the First World War. Sabine Hanke is a lecturer in Modern History at the University of Duisberg-Essen. Her research examines the German and British interwar circus. She was recently awarded her PhD in cultural history, from which this article has evolved, at the University of Sheffield. A chapter based on her research is scheduled for publication in Circus Histories and Theories, ed. Nisha P.R. and Melon Dilip (Oxford University Press).

Homage to Dr med. Božidar Kostić

2021 ◽  
pp. 096777202097458
Author(s):  
Božidar Pocevski ◽  
Prim. Predrag Pocevski ◽  
Lidija Horvat
Keyword(s):  
Great Success ◽  
World War ◽  
The People ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Medical Faculties ◽  
Medical University ◽  
Independent Work ◽  
The Town ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

Dr Božidar Kostić (1892–1960) – physician of noble heart – was born in Niš (Kingdom of Serbia) in a distinguished family of academically educated parents. As there were no medical faculties in Kingdom of Serbia, after high school, which he had finished with great success, in 1911 he enrolled at the Graz University of Medicine, a prestigious medical university. Soon he transferred to the Faculty of Medicine at Charles University in Prague, where he continued his studying for another ten semesters. In Prague, The Golden City, after the First World War, he finished his studies with an average grade of 10. After the Second World War, he worked as a doctor with a private medical practice in Belgrade, but soon he moved to Vranje, where he established the Town Polyclinic and contributed to the final flourishing of the most important forms of health care activities in liberated Vranje, donating his rich knowledge and skills, which led the health service to move to forms of independent work and development of new activities. For his contribution to the community, by decree of His Majesty King of Yugoslavia Alexander I Karađorđević, he received the Order of Saint Sava. Dr Božidar Kostić and his wife Pravda devoted their lives to the health and educational upbringing of the people in the south parts of Serbia (then Social Federative Republic of Yugoslavia). Until his last days he lived and worked as a true folk doctor.

scholarly journals Ethnic Fundraising in America and the Irish and Lithuanian Wars of Independence, 1918–1923

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
R. J. C. Adams ◽  
Vaida Nikšaitė
Keyword(s):  
Sovereign Debt ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Recognition ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
War Bonds ◽  
First World

Abstract The close of the First World War signalled a proliferation of newly established nation-states across Europe. However, the unilateral proclamations of these states’ independence did not guarantee their international recognition, nor did it guarantee their financial viability. This article examines the funding of two such states: the unrecognized Lithuanian (1919–23) and Irish (1919–21) republics. Both funded their wars of independence by selling ‘war bonds’ to their respective diasporas in the United States; the Lithuanians raising almost $1.9m from c. 28,000 subscribers and the Irish raising $5.8m from c. 300,000 subscribers. Communication between the organizers of these bond drives was virtually non-existent, but following the example of the US Liberty Loans they employed remarkably similar tactics. Yet, issued by self-proclaimed nation-states with neither territorial integrity nor a credible history of borrowing, the Lithuanian and Irish war bonds promised a return only when the states had received international recognition. In this sense, they were examples of what the authors term Pre-Sovereign Debt. Practically, they were a focal point for agitation for governmental recognition and rousing of American public opinion. Symbolically, they were tangible representations of the Lithuanian and Irish pretensions to statehood.

Iterative Modernism

Transfers ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greet De Block ◽  
Bruno De Meulder
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
First World War ◽  
Transport Systems ◽  
New Order ◽  
World War ◽  
Urbanized Territory ◽  
Access Road ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World ◽  
New Infrastructure

This article traces the implicit spatial project of Belgian engineers during the interwar period. By analyzing infrastructure planning and its inscribed spatial ideas as well as examining the hybrid modernity advocated by engineers and politicians, this article contributes to both urban and transport history.Unlike colleagues in countries such as Germany, Italy and the United States, Belgian engineers were not convinced that highways offered a salutary new order to a nation traumatized by the First World War. On the contrary, the Ponts et Chaussées asserted that this new limited access road would tear apart the densely populated areas and the diverse regional identities in Belgium. In their opinion, only an integration of existing and new infrastructure could harmonize the historically fragmented and urbanized territory. Tirelessly, engineers produced infrastructure plans, strategically interweaving different transport systems, which had to result in an overall transformation of the territory to facilitate modern production and export logics.

Changes in state-society relations from the First World War to the National Independence Struggle (1914-1923)

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-41
Author(s):  
Gülsüm Polat
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Social State ◽  
The People ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

This article compares and contrasts state-society relations during wartime, first under the Ottoman government during the First World War and, secondly, under the Ankara government during the National War of Liberation, and concludes that while the Ottoman government did attempt to address the great hardships faced by the population in this period, the Ankara government placed more emphasis both on the importance of the people, the halk, and on the development of a social state.

THE ORIGINS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

2006 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 1253-1271
Author(s):  
TALBOT C. IMLAY
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Öffentliche Meinung ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

Anticipating total war: the German and American experiences, 1871–1914. By Manfred Boemeke, Roger Chickering, and Stig Förster. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. ix+506. ISBN 0-521-62294-8. £55.00.German strategy and the path to Verdun: Erich von Falkenhayn and the development of attrition, 1870–1916. By Robert T. Foley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. xiv+316. ISBN 0-521-84193-3. £45.00.Europe's last summer: who started the Great War in 1914? By David Fromkin. New York: Knopf, 2004. Pp. xiii+368. ISBN 0-375-41156-9. £26.95.The origins of World War I. Edited by Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xiii+552. ISBN 0-521-81735-8. £35.00.Geheime Diplomatie und öffentliche Meinung: Die Parlamente in Frankreich, Deutschland und Grossbritanien und die erste Marokkokrise, 1904–1906. By Martin Mayer. Düsseldorf: Droste, 2002. Pp. 382. ISBN 3-7700-5242-0. £44.80.Helmuth von Moltke and the origins of the First World War. By Annika Mombauer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xvi+344. ISBN 0-521-79101-4. £48.00.The origins of the First World War: controversies and consensus. By Annika Mombauer. London: Pearson Education, 2002. Pp. ix+256. ISBN 0-582-41872-0. £15.99.Inventing the Schlieffen plan: German war planning, 1871–1914. By Terence Zuber. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xi+340. ISBN 0-19-925016-2. £52.50.As Richard Hamilton and Holger Herwig remark in the introduction to their edited collection of essays on the origins of the First World War, thousands of books (and countless articles) have been written on the subject, a veritable flood that began with the outbreak of the conflict in 1914 and continues to this day. This enduring interest is understandable: the First World War was, in George Kennan’s still apt phrase, the ‘great seminal catastrophe’ of the twentieth century. Marking the end of the long nineteenth century and the beginning of the short twentieth century, the war amounted to an earthquake whose seismic shocks and after-shocks resonated decades afterwards both inside and outside of the belligerent countries. The Bolshevik Revolution, the growth of fascist and Nazi movements, the accelerated emergence of the United States as a leading great power, the economic depression of the 1930s – these and other developments all have their roots in the tempest of war during 1914–18. Given the momentous nature of the conflict, it is little wonder that scholars continue to investigate – and to argue about – its origins. At the same time, as Hamilton and Herwig suggest, the sheer number of existing studies places the onus on scholars themselves to justify their decision to add to this historiographical mountain. This being so, in assessing the need for a new work on the origins of the war, one might usefully ask whether it fulfills one of several functions.

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