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- Title
- THE RED SCARE AND THE BI'S QUEST FOR POWER: THE SOVIET ARK AS POLITICAL THEATER.
- Creator
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Smith, Austin, Crepeau, Richard, Sacher, John, Walker, Ezekiel, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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The Red Scare of 1919-1920 has been presented as a wave of anti-Radical hysteria that swept post WWI America; a hysteria to which the state reluctantly capitulated to by arresting Radicals and deporting those alien Radicals they deemed most threatening. This presentation, however, is ludicrous when the motivations of the state and its conservative allies are examined. The truth of the matter was that almost all of the people targeted by the Red Scare represented no significant threat to the...
Show moreThe Red Scare of 1919-1920 has been presented as a wave of anti-Radical hysteria that swept post WWI America; a hysteria to which the state reluctantly capitulated to by arresting Radicals and deporting those alien Radicals they deemed most threatening. This presentation, however, is ludicrous when the motivations of the state and its conservative allies are examined. The truth of the matter was that almost all of the people targeted by the Red Scare represented no significant threat to the institutions of the United States and were merely targeted for holding Leftwing ideas, or being connected to a group that did. This work examines how the Red Scare deportations were used as a performance to gain power and funding for the Bureau of Investigation and how the Bureau sought to use this performance to set itself up as the premier anti-Radical agency in the United States.While the topic of the Red Scare of 1919-1920 has been thoroughly covered, most works on the subject attempt to cover the whole affair or even address it as part of a larger study of political repression in the United States. In these accounts these authors do not see the Red Scare as a performance, which culminated in the Soviet Ark deportations, put on by the BI in order to fulfill its goal of expanding its own importance. This work addresses the events leading up to climactic sailing of the Soviet Ark, as political theater put on by the BI and its allies in order to impress policy makers and other conservative interest groups.Since the Soviet Ark deportations were the climax of the Red Scare performance, this work addresses the event as a theatrical production and follows a three act dramatic structure. It begins by exploring the cast of characters, both individuals and organizations, in the BI's performance. This is followed by an analysis of the rising action of the BI, and other reactionary groups in the evolution of their grand performance. Finally the deportations serve as the climax of the Red Scare in this performance that the BI and its allies would use to justify an expansion of their influence.Through the use of government records, biographies, and first hand accounts, this work explores the Soviet Ark deportations as the high point of the first Red Scare, the point in which the BI and its allies took their quest for expanded power the furthest before having to change course. The grand performance that the Bureau of Investigation put on is looked at, not as a response to placate others (-) something the BI was merely swept up in (-) but as a performance that they designed to meet the specific needs of their campaign to grow their agency, a performance for which they were willing to draft those that represented no real threat despite the consequences to those individuals.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFE0005059, ucf:49977
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005059
- Title
- Byzantine Foreign Policy During the Reign of Constans II.
- Creator
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Morris, Joseph, Larson, Peter, Dandrow, Edward, Walker, Ezekiel, Pineda, Yovanna, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This thesis examines the foreign policy of Constans II as the first Byzantine Emperor to rule after the initial Arab conquests in Syria-Palestine. His reign, 641-668, was the first reign of a Byzantine Emperor where the entire reign was subject to Arab raids and invasions. Constans II also had to contend with the Slavs in Thessalonica and Greece and the Lombards in Italy. To complicate matters more, Constans II was forced to cope with the religious division between the eastern and western...
Show moreThis thesis examines the foreign policy of Constans II as the first Byzantine Emperor to rule after the initial Arab conquests in Syria-Palestine. His reign, 641-668, was the first reign of a Byzantine Emperor where the entire reign was subject to Arab raids and invasions. Constans II also had to contend with the Slavs in Thessalonica and Greece and the Lombards in Italy. To complicate matters more, Constans II was forced to cope with the religious division between the eastern and western churches due to Monothelitism in the East. Beset on every frontier and inheriting a much reduced empire after decades of intermittent warfare and several disastrous defeats, scholars have reasoned that Constans II's reign was defensive and turbulent in nature. This thesis uses literary and archeological sources to argue that Constans II had a foreign policy focused on actively retaking lost Byzantine territory. While stabilizing the frontiers in his early reign, he suffered devastating defeats and serious threats, primarily from the sea, where the Arab navy had gained superiority. His attempt in securing the western provinces of Italy and North Africa demonstrate not an emperor who was abandoning Constantinople, but one that was attempting to regain the initiative from the Arabs and deprive them of Egypt, which was providing the Arabs with a navy, wealth, and an agricultural surplus. Despite the Byzantine losses Constans II did not accept the transformation in Byzantine territory and influence. The thesis concludes with a historical analysis of his successors and how their foreign policies differed from Constans II's.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFE0005534, ucf:50318
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005534
- Title
- Revolutionary Manifestos and Fidel Castro's Road to Power.
- Creator
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Plazas, Luis, Martinez Fernandez, Luis, Pineda, Yovanna, Walker, Ezekiel, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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The historiography of the Cuban Revolution includes numerous accounts which detail the responses to Batista's coup. The fact that anti-Batista sentiments were very popular in Cuba, and that several revolutionary groups existed has also been highly documented. Nonetheless, the most highly recognized insurrectional organization remains Castro's M-26-7. The goal of my thesis is to explain the steps which Castro took in order to remove all competition, allowing him to remain the only figure left...
Show moreThe historiography of the Cuban Revolution includes numerous accounts which detail the responses to Batista's coup. The fact that anti-Batista sentiments were very popular in Cuba, and that several revolutionary groups existed has also been highly documented. Nonetheless, the most highly recognized insurrectional organization remains Castro's M-26-7. The goal of my thesis is to explain the steps which Castro took in order to remove all competition, allowing him to remain the only figure left in power. The process in which Castro came to power will be analyzed in order to gain a better understanding of how he orchestrated the removal of other revolutionary groups. My thesis will show that Castro purposely aided some groups, when it was to his benefit, but also denied aid to these same groups when he knew that he could gain an advantage over them. An analysis of the manifestos will reveal that most anti-Batista groups had their own agendas and that often times they were attempting to work together in order to coordinate Cuba's future. I will focus on primary source materials such as eye witness accounts, historical publications, diaries and newspapers. I intend on analyzing Castro's M-26-7, from the time of his attack of the Moncada Barracks, through the course of the insurrection itself, and his final actions as Batista fled Cuba in 1959.By investigating the actions that were taken by Castro and his followers, in light of how those actions affected the other revolutionaries groups, will shed light on why certain decisions were made by the M-26-7. The outcome of this research will show that the M-26-7 orchestrated their actions with the sole purpose of bringing Castro to power when the insurrection war was over.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFE0005538, ucf:50320
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005538
- Title
- Reconciling Order and Progress: Auguste Comte, Gustave Le Bon, (&)#201;mile Durkheim, and the Development of Positivism in France, 1820-1914.
- Creator
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Navarro, Khali, Lyons, Amelia, Walker, Ezekiel, Crepeau, Richard, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This thesis discusses the philosophy of positivism in nineteenth century France. Based on an empirical vision of society, positivism advocated values of rationality, progress, and secularization. In that way, it stood as one of the defining systems of thought of the modern era. I discuss, however, an undercurrent of anxiety about those same values. Positivism's founder, Auguste Comte, argued that all sciences would become unified and organized under universal principles and empirical...
Show moreThis thesis discusses the philosophy of positivism in nineteenth century France. Based on an empirical vision of society, positivism advocated values of rationality, progress, and secularization. In that way, it stood as one of the defining systems of thought of the modern era. I discuss, however, an undercurrent of anxiety about those same values. Positivism's founder, Auguste Comte, argued that all sciences would become unified and organized under universal principles and empirical standards. He viewed the human mind as becoming more rationalized throughout history. In his later career, however, he argued that rationalism was a destructive force and that a new form of secular religion as necessary to establish morality and order. I argue that this transition from science to religion represents an underlying anxiety of the nineteenth century. Intellectuals from different sides of the political spectrum viewed progress as positive, but also limited. They argued that something beyond science, in the realm of the religious, the metaphysical, or the subjective, was necessary for society. They expressed these concerns through the language of gender. Comte argued that women would be at the center of his religion. They would socialize and moralize men, making them part of a new unified, pacifist and orderly social whole.I also discuss two later intellectuals, social psychologist Gustave Le Bon and pioneering sociologist (&)#201;mile Durkheim. Le Bon represented the fin-de-si(&)#232;cle rejection of positivism. He began with positivist principles, but later argued that humanity was irrational and violent. He viewed the modern masses as a powerful force which threatened to destroy civilization. The other figure, Durkheim, rejected Le Bon's form of nationalist right-wing thought and formed theories of social harmony, altruism, and a solidarity. He sought to reconcile egalitarian republican principles with positivist science. Despite their diverging theories, however, Le Bon and Durkheim employed similar assumptions about modernity and gender. Le Bon argued that European men were superior, and that all other groups shared an undeveloped mentality. Durkheim argued that men were social while women were simpler and mentally limited.Their views, far from establishing an unproblematic hierarchy of gender and race, in fact expressed anxieties about the state of modernity. They identified women, the lower classes, and other societies with values of simplicity, unity, and tradition. They identified the modern, Western male individual with the problems of modern society: excessive rationalization, instability, and secularization. This sense of ambivalence about modernity reveals the central importance of positivism to understanding nineteenth century thought. Positivism sought to reconcile seemingly antithetical principles of order with progress, individualism with social unity, and morality with rationalization. In doing so, it established anxieties about the forces of change. Positivists advocated the most modern of principles, and sought to further the progress of civilization, but also identified those rationalized forces as problems in need of control. Positivism thus established its own undoing, which would come at the beginning of the twentieth century. In that era, intellectuals rejected purely scientific visions of the world in favor of subjective thought. I locate the origins of that rejection at the very foundations of positivist theory.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFE0005220, ucf:50644
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005220
- Title
- The Rwandan Genocide and Western Media: French, British, and American Press Coverage of the Genocide between April and July of 1994.
- Creator
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Tyrrell, Candice, Walker, Ezekiel, Lyons, Amelia, Crepeau, Richard, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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The Rwandan Genocide occurred between April and July of 1994. Within those four months, approximately a million Tutsi were brutally murdered by the Hutu in an effort to cleanse the country of a Tutsi presence. The genocide was the culmination of decades of unrest between the two groups created from Western influence under colonialism and post-colonial relationships. The international response to the genocide was scarce. While international intervention waned, the international media kept the...
Show moreThe Rwandan Genocide occurred between April and July of 1994. Within those four months, approximately a million Tutsi were brutally murdered by the Hutu in an effort to cleanse the country of a Tutsi presence. The genocide was the culmination of decades of unrest between the two groups created from Western influence under colonialism and post-colonial relationships. The international response to the genocide was scarce. While international intervention waned, the international media kept the genocide relevant in its publications. This thesis examines print media sources from the United States, Britain, and France. This thesis argues that the reporting of the genocide exacerbated larger issues concerning the relationship between the West and Africa. The journalists perpetuated Western superiority over Africa by utilizing racism to preserve colonial ideologies and stereotypes of Africans. In turn, this inherent Western racism complicated the implementation of human rights legislation that would have helped save Tutsi lives. This thesis places the Rwandan genocide, through the reports of Western media, into the larger historiographic context of the Western African dichotomy.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0005730, ucf:50080
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005730
- Title
- Entering Nam: A Comparative Study of the Entrance Experiences of Volunteer and Drafted Service Members into the Military During the Vietnam War.
- Creator
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Wilt, Ashley, Lester, Connie, Gannon, Barbara, Sacher, John, Walker, Ezekiel, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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Many historians have conducted oral history interviews with Vietnam War veterans in an attempt to offer a more personal perspective to the study of the Vietnam War; however, most historians do not consciously differentiate between drafted and volunteer veterans. Identifying whether a veteran was drafted into service or volunteered is critical because the extent to which this service was voluntary or coerced may affect the way a veteran remembers his military service. By conducting oral...
Show moreMany historians have conducted oral history interviews with Vietnam War veterans in an attempt to offer a more personal perspective to the study of the Vietnam War; however, most historians do not consciously differentiate between drafted and volunteer veterans. Identifying whether a veteran was drafted into service or volunteered is critical because the extent to which this service was voluntary or coerced may affect the way a veteran remembers his military service. By conducting oral histories, one can consciously delineate service members who volunteered as opposed to those who were drafted to determine if the veterans' experiences change based on the nature of their entry into the military. Additionally, examining the implementation of a national draft and its effects on service members' experiences will offer a better understanding of American military history. While much of the attention of scholars has been on drafted soldiers in Vietnam, little research has been conducted on the experience of the volunteer soldier.This study relies on oral history interviews conducted with volunteer and drafted service members of the Vietnam War to determine if there were differences between draftees and volunteers based on their entrance into the military. The research and oral history interviews with the two veteran groups establishes that the dissent detailed by draft protesters was not always the case and service members, volunteers and draftees alike, more often than not accepted their military service. The interviewed veterans' responses suggest that resistance to military service during the Vietnam War may not have been as great as one might think given the attention that has been placed on the anti-draft movement.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- CFE0004211, ucf:49025
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004211
- Title
- Pompey's Organization of the East.
- Creator
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Robinson, Joshua, Dandrow, Edward, Larson, Peter, Walker, Ezekiel, Sacher, John, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This thesis illustrates how Pompey's annexations and organizing of the eastern provinces for Rome were more pragmatic than imperialistic. Greek and Eastern specialists are used in order to give a better back story than the imperialist thesis offers in its reasoning for the annexations. By adding more detail from the Greek and Eastern perspective, other dimensions are opened that shed new light upon the subject of Pompey's eastern settlements. Through this method, the pirate campaign and the...
Show moreThis thesis illustrates how Pompey's annexations and organizing of the eastern provinces for Rome were more pragmatic than imperialistic. Greek and Eastern specialists are used in order to give a better back story than the imperialist thesis offers in its reasoning for the annexations. By adding more detail from the Greek and Eastern perspective, other dimensions are opened that shed new light upon the subject of Pompey's eastern settlements. Through this method, the pirate campaign and the annexation of Syria are greatly developed, especially in concern to changes in culture that Pompey's settlements forced. The culture of piracy and banditry were curbed by the eastern annexations. In Syria the Greek settlements were revived and protected from the expansion of Arab and Jewish dynasts. Considering the annexation of Pontus, a more detailed analysis on the lex Pompeia and the new taxation system is developed, which questions parts of the imperialist thesis especially in regards to role of the publicani. Graeco-Roman cultural spread is also developed in the Pontus chapter to show some of Pompey's motives. Previous works are expanded upon and synthesized into this work, the aim being to reconcile some of the arguments, concluding with the proposition that Pompey, his efforts, and his settlements, were more pragmatic than imperialistic.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFE0005054, ucf:49980
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005054
