War and the image of Germany

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Justus D. Doenecke

When war broke out in Europe in 1914, political leaders in the United States were swayed by popular opinion to remain neutral; yet less than three years later, the nation declared war on Germany. In this book, the author examines the clash of opinions over the war during this transformative period and offers a fresh perspective on America's decision to enter World War I. He reappraises the public and private diplomacy of President Woodrow Wilson and his closest advisors and explores in great depth the response of Congress to the war. He also investigates the debates that raged in the popular media and among citizen groups that sprang up across the country as the U.S. economy was threatened by European blockades and as Americans died on ships sunk by German U-boats. The decision to engage in battle ultimately belonged to Wilson, but as the author demonstrates, Wilson's choice was not made in isolation. This work provides an examination of America's internal political climate and its changing international role during the seminal period of 1914-1917.

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Eric Lohr

"In this study of the treatment of "enemy" minorities in the Russian Empire during the First World War, Eric Lohr uncovers a dramatic story of mass deportations, purges, expropriations, and popular violence. An imperial campaign initially aimed at restricting foreign citizens rapidly spun out of control. It swept up Russian subjects of German, Jewish, and Muslim backgrounds and drove roughly a million civilians from one part of the empire to another, becoming one of the largest cases of forced migration in history to that time. Because foreigners and diaspora minorities were prominent among entrepreneurial and landowning elites, the campaign against them also became an explosive element in class and national tensions on the eve of the 1917 revolutions." "During the war, the imperial regime dropped its ambivalence about Russian nationalism and embraced unprecedented and radical policies that "nationalized" the economy, the land, and even the population. The core idea of the campaign that the country needed to free itself from the domination of foreigners, internal enemies, and the exploitative world economic system - later became a central feature of the Soviet revolutionary model."--Jacket.

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Mark LeVine

"In 1993 luminaries from around the world signed the Oslo accords, a pledge to achieve lasting peace in the Holy Land. Yet, with over a thousand Israelis and nearly four times that number of Palestinians killed since 2000, the Oslo process is now considered "history"." "Impossible Peace provides one of the first comprehensive analyses of that history. Mark LeVine argues that Oslo was never going to bring peace or justice to Palestinians or Israelis. He claims that the accords collapsed not because of a failure to live up to the agreements, but precisely because of the terms and underlying ideologies of those agreements." "This account of the peace process in the Middle East shows how by learning from history it may be possible to avoid the errors that have long doomed peace in the region."--Jacket.

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Joshua Bernard Forrest

"Namibia's Post-Apartheid Regional Institutions is an examination of the development of regional policy-making and organizational behavior of Namibia's regional institutions in their founding year (1993), as they were established after independence from South Africa in 1990. The study emphasizes the importance of focusing on the microlevel dynamics and communications of public organizations in order to understand the intricacies of decentralization, in Namibia as in other parts of the world. The author shows clearly that a focus on the capacity-building activities of elected regional councils and parliaments can reveal important aspects of the strengthening of new democracies."--BOOK JACKET.