Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures – serie

Over the course of the 20th century, Germans from virtually all walks of life were touched by two problems: forging a sense of national community and coming to terms with widespread suffering. Arguably, no country in the modern Western world has been so closely associated with both inflicting and overcoming catastrophic misery in the name of national belonging. Within this context, the concept and ideal of ""sacrifice"" have played a pivotal role in recent German political culture. As the seven studies in this volume show, once the value of heroic national sacrifice was invoked during World War I to mobilize German soldiers and civilians, it proved to be a remarkably effective way to respond to a wide variety of social dislocations. How did the ideals of sacrifice play a role in constructing German nationalism? How did the Nazis use this idea to justify mass killing? What consequences did this have for postwar Germany? This volume opens up discussions about the history of 20th-century German political life.

Six scholars consider important aspects of American antebellum expansion in this collection of studies newly available in paperback.Robert W. Johannsen of the University of Illinois at Urbana offers fresh insight into the meaning of the term ""manifest destiny,"" arguing for a broader definition.John M. Belohlavek of the University of South Florida takes a close look at the expansionist attitudes of Caleb Cushing, a Massachusetts politician, diplomat, reformer, and intellectual.Thomas R. Hietala of Grinnell College examines the complicated clash of cultures (the result of Manifest Destiny) and how it was viewed by observant individuals such as George Catlin, a painter who traveled and lived among Native Americans just prior to the expansionist surge of the 1840s.Winner of the Webb essay competition for 1996, Samuel J. Watson of Rice University studies U.S. Army officers' responses to territorial expansionism between 1815 and 1846. Sam W. Haynes uncovers the social and political complexities, including a widespread fear of Great Britain, that made Texas' annexation the most divisive issue of its day. Finally, Robert E. May of Purdue University offers a compelling examination of American filibustering during the Manifest Destiny era.

Transatlantic historians are dedicated to analyzing the dynamic process of encounter and interchange among people on all sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Much discussion has surrounded the definition, geographic limitations, and temporal scope of transatlantic history defined primarily by a conceptual approach that focuses on the interconnectedness of human experience over the centuries in the Atlantic Basin.The forty-ninth annual Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lecture Series Currents in Transatlantic Thought focused on a new approach to history that focuses on the complex process of interchange and adaptation beginning when Africans, Amerindians, and Europeans first came into contact and continues to the present day. The essays presented in this volume stem from those lectures to cover a variety of subjects, but each shares a unifying theme to understand the complexities of transatlantic history.

In Deportation in the Americas: Histories of Exclusion and Resistance, editors Kenyon Zimmer and Cristina Salinas have compiled seven essays, adapted from the Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lecture Series, that deeply consider deportation policy in the Americas and its global effects.These thoughtful pieces significantly contribute to a growing historiography on deportation within immigration studies—a field that usually focuses on arriving immigrants and their adaptation. All contributors have expanded their analysis to include transnational and global histories, while recognizing that immigration policy is firmly developed within the structure of the nation-state. Thus, the authors do not abandon national peculiarity regarding immigration policy, but as Emily Pope-Obeda observes, “from its very inception, immigration restriction was developed with one eye looking outward.” Contributors note that deportation policy can signal friendship or cracks within the relationships between nations.Rather than solely focusing on immigration policy in the abstract, the authors remain cognizant of the very real effects domestic immigration policies have on deportees and push readers to think about how the mobility and lives of individuals come to be controlled by the state, as well as the ways in which immigrants and their allies have resisted and challenged deportation. From the development of the concept of an “anchor baby” to continued policing of those who are foreign-born, Deportation in the Americas is an essential resource for understanding this critical and timely topic.