Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura E. Ruberto ◽  
Joseph Sciorra
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Brain Drain ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Identity ◽  
World War ◽  
Italian American ◽  
Migration History ◽  
European Migration

This introductory essay documents the data of Italian migration to the United States from 1945 to the present and offers organizational categories through which to better conceptualize these seventy years of migration. Post-World War II Italians were mostly working class immigrants and constituted town-based Italian diasporas, while the last four decades have witnessed elite immigrants, or professionals considered a brain drain, leaving Italy for the United States (and elsewhere). Immigrant replenishment by new or “real Italians” greatly impacted the preexisting and still-developing sense of Italian American identity with its changing notions of race and style, and patterns of consumerism. By reconceptualizing migration history, this essay seeks to assess more generally how ongoing European migration is related to the continual development of postmodern notions of Italian ethnicity.

Italian American Identity and Politics: World War II To the Cold War

2019 ◽  
pp. 17-48
Author(s):  
Danielle Battisti
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigration Reform ◽  
World War ◽  
Public Identity ◽  
Italian Americans ◽  
Italian American ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines Italian American loyalty campaigns during World War II as well as postwar campaigns to promote the democratic reconstruction of Italy. It argues that even though Italian Americans had made great strides toward political and social inclusion in the United States, they were still deeply concerned with their group’s public identity at mid-century. This chapter also demonstrates that in the course of their increased involvement with their homeland politics in the postwar period, Italian Americans gradually came to believe that the successful democratization of Italy (and therefore their own standing in the United States) was dependent upon relieving population pressures that they believed threatened the political and economic reconstruction of Italy. That belief played an important role in stirring Italian Americans to action on issues of immigration reform.

Americans All: World War II and the Shaping of American Identity

1981 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Gleason
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Identity ◽  
World War ◽  
American Life ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
The Subject ◽  
General Studies ◽  
Wartime Experience

Although it is four decades since the United States entered World War II, some aspects of the nation's wartime experience are still virtually unstudied. Military and diplomatic historians have labored productively for many years, but historians interested in American social and intellectual developments are just beginning to turn their attention to the wartime era. Recent general studies by Richard Polenberg and John M. Blum are especially welcome since, by drawing greater attention to the period, they should stimulate further research. There is much left to be done because the war affected practically every dimension of American life. The present essay deals with one of its less obvious effects —the way in which it shaped the thinking of a whole generation on the subject of American identity.

Bones of Contention: China’s World War II Military Graves in India, Burma, and Papua New Guinea

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linh D. Vu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Chinese State ◽  
International Status

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.

Do We Need a Postmodern Anthropology for Mission in a Postcolonial World?

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Rynkiewich
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
World War ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cross Fertilization

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.

The German Problem: 1945–1950

1968 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Epstein
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
World War ◽  
Narrative History ◽  
German Question ◽  
The Future

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.

Wartime Prosperity? A Reassessment of the U.S. Economy in the 1940s

1992 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Higgs
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Performance Measures ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Macroeconomic Performance ◽  
Command Economy ◽  
First Time ◽  
The U.S

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document