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Florence Nightingale: A Critical Look at a Legend
Get PDFFlorence Nightingale was a nineteenth-century woman who has been largely misunderstood by contemporary society. Today, the name of Florence Nightingale conjures the image of the saintly lady of the lamp; a nurturing and compassionate woman who patiently cared for ailing and lonely soldiers. Although this image has substance, Florence Nightingale was passionate, driven, ambitious, and egocentric. In many ways, she fully realized her sister\u27s accusation that she was more like a man of her time than any woman of her era.1 She was, however, marked undoubtedly by the puritanical Victorian model of womanhood. Very much a product of her class and upbringing , she forged ahead, primarily striving to improve the plight of the soldier, but also the general welfare of the common person\u27 sickbed.
Roosevelt\u27s Great Defeat: The Court Packing Fight of 1937
Get PDFThroughout the history of the United States, the president has often quarreled with the Supreme Court over matters of policy and the Constitution, but rarely has a president tried to overhaul the Court to accomplish his goals. At the start of Franklin Delano Roosevelt\u27s second administration in 1937, the nation faced a crisis as the President attempted to change the Court that had obstructed his attempts to alleviate the effects of the Great Depression. While Roosevelt was understandably frustrated with the Supreme Court\u27s thwarting of his policies, the actions he took were too drastic to be tolerated by the majority of the population. While many felt that the Supreme Court was getting in the way of the New Deal legislation, few felt that the President had the right to attempt to change it. Opposition to this plan extended from Washington, D.C., to the rural United States as people realized its implications. The fact that Roosevelt was popular and had just won a huge victory in the 1936 presidential election did not necessarily mean that he had the support of the public in such an unprecedented move as to pack the United States Supreme Court. As Roosevelt stubbornly pursued his plan, the reactions of the people and changes in the policy of the Court made it impossible for Roosevelt to win. The events of 1937 eventually handed Roosevelt the greatest defeat he had as President.
Whittaker Chambers: A Biography, by Sam Tanenhaus. (New York: Random House, 1997. Pp. 638. $35.00)
Get PDFFree-lance writer Sam Tanenhaus has made an extraordinary contribution to twentieth-century American history in his stunning new biography of Whittaker Chambers. Tanenhaus combines scholastic rigidity with his eminently readable style to create a work of the highest standard of historical biography. Whittaker Chambers emerges as a complex, enigmatic figure, misunderstood by most in his own time and by his liberal critics yet today. The author is successful in understanding and intimating the complex forces that drew Chambers to, and ultimately from, communism, and eventually toward his confrontation with Alger Hiss
Of Blood, Books, and Holy Men
Get PDF"The intimacy of your love used to rejoice me greatly when I was with you," the monk, teacher, scholar, and poet Alcuin wrote to the monks of Lindisfarne after the monastery had been sacked on June 8, 793, "but conversely, the calamity of your tribulation saddens me greatly every day, though I am absent. Alcuin wrote from the court of Charlemagne, where he had heard the terrible news of the first of a number of Viking raids that would eventually devastate the monasteries of Northumbria in the ninth century. Himself a native of those northern lands, he received word of the barbaric acts of devastation with great pain, and sought to offer reasons for such an improbable conclusion to the history of a venerable religious institution which began with Aidan in the seventh century:... the pagans desecrated the sanctuaries of God, and poured out the blood of saints around the altar, laid waste the house of our hope, trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the street. . . . Either this is the beginning of greater tribulation, or else the sins of the inhabitants have called it upon them. Truly it has not happened by chance, but is a sign that it was well merited by someone. But now, you who are left, stand manfully, fight bravely, defend the camp of God. . . . If anything ought to be corrected in your Grace\u27s habits, correct it quickly. . . . Do not glory in the vanity of raiment; this is not a glory to the priests and servants of God, but a disgrace. Do not in drunkenness blot out the words of your prayers. Do not go out after luxuries of the flesh and worldly avarice, but continue steadfastly in the service of God and in the discipline of the regular life, that the most holy fathers, who begot you, may not cease to be your protectors.1It could not have happened by chance, because nothing in the Christian world of the early Middle Ages happened by chance alone, but was "a sign that it was well merited by someone." Alcuin interprets the attack as God\u27s punishment for the laxity of His people - the suggested remedy is order and true monastic discipline, so that the saints-protectors who stood so firm during the early years of the establishment would not cease to shield the servants of God from danger
Islam as a Heresy: Christendom\u27s Ideological View of Islam
Get PDFThe heresies discussed in the book by Jeffrey Burton Russell, Dissent and Order in the Middle Ages cover a variety of types. When heresies appeared across Europe, they were swiftly and often harshly dealt with. Witness the Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade concluding with the massacre of the Cathars at Montsegur in 1244. However, Islam presents a challenge to the student of Christian heresies, for it does not fit neatly into the same category as the Cathars.
A Hopeless Cause? American Involvement in the Somali Civil War
Get PDFThe continent of Africa has been plagued with violence since the time of European colonization. Once independence was granted to many African countries, the violence worsened as competing warlords engaged in armed struggles for power. It is the citizens of these countries that suffer the most, especially when man-made famines are used to create compliance. Somalia is an example of an African country wrought with civil war that gained the attention and the aid of the international community. The United States had a large role in the humanitarian assistance that went to Somalia, beginning with President George H.W. Bush and ending with President William J. Clinton\u27s administration. Somalia was not enthusiastic in welcoming United Nations assistance, particularly from the United States, which continually underestimated the resolve of the Somalis to take control of their own affairs. While the intentions of the United States in Somalia were based on helping those who could not help themselves, the American political and military leaders failed to gain a sense of the cultural issues valued by the Somali people. The approach used in Somalia by the United States, via the United Nations, was another example of the United States believing it would be able to solve what was ultimately an insolvable problem
Teaching Inclusion and Discourse: A Classroom Demonstration from Nepal
Get PDFWhile a cornerstone of any democracy, efficacious civic discourse and the ability to come to reasonable compromise seem to occur rarely today. This paper suggests that higher education may be a place to teach such skills, describes a two-fold approach of lecture and class exercise, and reports on student results from a case example. Lecture on concepts based on Habermas\u27 lifeworld and ideal speech situation, with an emphasis on the relationship of these two terms to that of deliberative justice, was provided to graduate students in Nepal before engaging them in a class exercise deliberating about a social issue relevant to the local context. Both quantitative and qualitative results indicated that students understanding of the material significantly improved through the method of presentation. This pedagogymay be one way to increase civic discourse and engagement in society
The Two-Edged Sword: Slavery and the Commerce Clause, 1837-1852
Get PDFBetween 1837 and 1852, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roger B. Taney was severly divided over the scope of national authority to regulate interstate commerce. Although the Taney Court decided only one case that directly involved the question of slavery and interstate commerce (Groves v. Slaughter), the purpose of this paper is to explore the Court\u27s treatment of interstate commerce during this period and the influence of the growing slavery controversy on that treatment
Militant Abolitionist Gerrit Smith
Get PDFGreat wealth never precluded men from committing themselves to redressing what they considered moral wrongs within American society. Great wealth allowed men the time and money to devote themselves absolutely to their passionate causes. During America\u27s antebellum period, various social and political concerns attracted wealthy men\u27s attentions; for example, temperance advocates, a popular cause during this era, considered alcohol a sin to be abolished. One outrageous evil, southern slavery, tightly concentrated many men\u27s political attentions, both for and against slavery, and produced some intriguing, radical and rhetoric and actions; foremost among these reform movements stood abolitionism, possibly one of the greatest reform movements of this era.
A New History of India. 6th edition. By Stanley Wolpert. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. ix, 450. $49.95.)
Get PDFOn May II, 1998, the newly constituted government of India, headed by the Hindunationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), detonated a nuclear device at Pokhran. The same site had been used twenty-four years earlier when Indira Gandhi had done the same thing This time, the world was aghast for a multitude of reasons. This device was detonated to further India\u27s program of nuclear weaponization, whereas Indira\u27s program was for peaceful purposes. Secondly, the decision was made by a Hindu-nationalist party, rather than the secular Congress party. Finally, this nuclear detonation essentially forced the government of Pakistan to respond two weeks later with its own detonation and weaponization. Overnight, "South Asia has thus achieved the dreaded distinction of becoming the world\u27s most perilous region of potential nuclear conflict in the twenty-first century.·(454) A region that still has not resolved long-festering Indo-Pak tensions over Kashmir, that are only exacerbated by religious differences