Download or read book Random Destiny How the Vietnam War Draft Lottery Shaped a Generation written by Wesley Abney and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2019-03-30 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a concise but thorough summary of how the selective service system worked from 1965 through 1973, and also demonstrates how this selective process, during a highly unpopular war, steered major life choices of millions of young men seeking deferrals based on education, occupation, marital and family status, sexual orientation, and more. This book explains each category of deferral and its resulting “ripple effect” across society. Putting a human face on these sociological trends, the book also includes a number of brief personal anecdotes from men in each category, told from a remove of 40 years or more, when the lifelong effects of youthful decisions prompted by the draft have become evident. There are few books which address the military draft of the Vietnam years, most notably CHANCE AND CIRCUMSTANCE: The Draft, the War and the Vietnam Generation, by Baskir and Strauss (1978). This early study of draft-age men discusses how they were socially channeled by the selective service system. RANDOM DESTINY follows up on this premise and draws from numerous later studies of men in the lottery pool, to create the definitive portrait of the draft and its long-term personal and social effects. RANDOM DESTINY presents an in-depth explanation of the selective service system in its final years. It also provides a comprehensive yet personal portrait of how the draft and the lottery steered a generation of young lives into many different paths, from combat to conscientious objection, from teaching to prison, from the pulpit to the Canadian border, from public health to gay liberation. It is the only recent book which demonstrates how American military conscription, in the time of an unpopular war, profoundly influenced a generation and a society over the decades that followed.
Download or read book Modern Luck written by Robert S. C. Gordon and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2023-01-16 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beliefs, superstitions and tales about luck are present across all human cultures, according to anthropologists. We are perennially fascinated by luck and by its association with happiness and danger, uncertainty and aspiration. Yet it remains an elusive, ungraspable idea, one that slips and slides over time: all cultures reimagine what luck is and how to tame it at different stages in their history, and the modernity of the ‘long twentieth century’ is no exception to the rule. Apparently overshadowed by more conceptually tight, scientific and characteristically modern notions such as chance, contingency, probability or randomness, luck nevertheless persists in all its messiness and vitality, used in our everyday language and the subject of studies by everyone from philosophers to psychologists, economists to self-help gurus. Modern Luck sets out to explore the enigma of luck’s presence in modernity, examining the hybrid forms it has taken on in the modern imagination, and in particular in the field of modern stories. Indeed, it argues that modern luck is constituted through narrative, through modern luck stories. Analysing a rich and unusually eclectic range of narrative taken from literature, film, music, television and theatre – from Dostoevsky to Philip K. Dick, from Pinocchio to Cimino, from Curtiz to Kieślowski – it lays out first the usages and meanings of the language of luck, and then the key figures, patterns and motifs that govern the stories told about it, from the late nineteenth century to the present day.
Download or read book Battle Green Vietnam written by Elise Lemire and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2021-04-16 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on more than one hundred interviews with participants and accompanied by nearly forty photographs and maps, Battle Green Vietnam tells the story of the 1971 antiwar protest by Vietnam veterans that resulted in the largest mass arrest in Massachusetts history.
Download or read book Drumbeat written by John Martino and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-05-03 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the twenty-first century unfolds society is confronted with the normalization of warfare and political violence and their growing allure for the young. Current global political events highlight the extent to which young people have become the target of both State and non-State actors in the prosecution of war and terror. The conduct of what we can refer to as "social war" has increasingly come to target the young through media (social media, the internet and video games) and more directly through acts of violence (the massacre of children, the reliance on child soldiers, and the use of children in martyrdom operations) as legitimate forms of conduct. The appropriation of the young as political and military materials through the processes of both radicalization and militarization warrants close examination. Drumbeat examines these issues within the context of the ongoing process of militarization and the establishment of a state of perpetual warfare. The book distinguishes between radicalization, which refers to the application of propaganda and ideological methods by non-State agents, and militarization, which refers to the application of propaganda and ideological methods by State agents in order to effectively prosecute war. The focus of this book will be an examination of the mechanisms through which forms of media and other digital and web-based artefacts – social media, video and video games - assist in the militarization and radicalization of the young. There is a growing body of evidence which points to the effectiveness of various forms of media in both the recruitment of young people and the promotion of ideological frames. For example, non-State actors (extremist religious groups and the Alt-Right) have been highly effective in appropriating new media to project their propaganda messages and their appeal to young people. The book also argues that militarization has become a powerful societal force, which is re-configuring the daily conduct of life in the West. Just as radicalization seeks to prepare the young for the conduct of war, militarization also functions to position the broader society for war. This is a new form of the "civilizing process" to which Norbert Elias referred. In this context new media provides the conduits through which this process is legitimized, celebrated and promulgated.
Download or read book I Won a Life in the Lottery written by Dale Warren and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2017-10-14 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This true coming of age story that shares the humor, drama, and romance of a forty-year love affair that begins with me being picked number one in the Vietnam War draft lottery. Some have compared this story favorably with Forest Gump or The Wonder Years.Winning the lottery shaped and molded my life. No, I didn't win the Power Ball or some other Million Dollar prize. On July 1, 1970, I won the Vietnam War Draft Lottery when my birthday, July 9th was chosen number one. I Won a Life in the Lottery - The Vietnam War Draft Lottery, chronicles the true-life adventure that resulted from being drafted during the Vietnam War. This dramatic yet humorous adventure began with marrying my sixteen-year-old sweet heart and moving her across country from her family and everything she knew to serve at the United States Army Intelligence School. This couple of naïve teenagers not only faced the realities of the war, but medical emergencies, encounters with cults, and being able to assist Interpol with drug smugglers. They together faced life threatening emergencies, heights of winning "Soldier of the Year, and surprises of sitting in the dugout during the World Series at Dodger stadium in Los Angeles. Most importantly this young couple learned they could handle anything if they stuck together, counted on each other, trusted in the Lord, and let their love grow into a forty-year love affair. Winning the draft lottery gave them a life worth living, a life of true adventure filled with laughter and tears. This humorous heartfelt story is inspired by the unexpected opportunities provided after my birthday was the number one pick in the Vietnam War draft lottery.
Download or read book Chance and Circumstance written by Lawrence M. Baskir and published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 1978 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Draft Lottery written by Natalie M. Rosinsky and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2008-09 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of the draft in the United States.
Download or read book A Nation Divided The Conflicting Personalities Visions and Values of Liberals and Conservatives written by Anthony Walsh and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2019-10-02 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Activists have long claimed that “the personal is political”, but this book posits the converse: that the political is personal. The United States today is bitterly divided. It is less an aspirational melting pot of immigrants and more a salad bowl made up of distinct, often clashing flavors. The successive elections of two divisive presidents—one committed to the perennial leftist dream of “fundamental change” and the other to a conservative vision of “Making America Great Again”—have exacerbated what is arguably the greatest rift in politics since the election of Abraham Lincoln. Taking inspiration from Coleridge’s belief that all humans are temperamentally destined to follow the path of Plato the Idealist or Aristotle the Realist, this book examines the political divide in terms of these temperamental differences. Liberals’ and conservatives’ views of human nature have a large bearing on the political policies they espouse, but their temperaments and personalities have the most significant impact. This book analyses the personality traits of liberals and conservatives in terms of the “Big Five” model—openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Conservatives are found in almost all studies to be more conscientious, agreeable, and extroverted, while liberals are found to be more open to new experience and neurotic. The political divisions I explore in this book are all essentially fueled by personality differences. There is a deepening divide between liberals and conservatives in the battle for America’s soul: one side seeks to steer the nation sharply to the left into socialist selfdom, whereas the other side desires a wealthy and free America under the watchful eye of God’s providence. A preponderance of academic texts belongs to the liberal tradition. Conservatives have long lacked a comparable intellectual tradition of their own, although an incipient one is now beginning to form. This book, while maintaining a measure of scholarly distance, is unashamedly written from a conservative point of view.
Download or read book As political soldiers we face Moscow s hordes Dutch volunteers in the Waffen SS written by Evertjan van Roekel and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2022-01-04 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Second World War, approximately 25,000 Dutchmen served within the ranks of the military branch of the German SS: the Waffen-SS. They volunteered to fight to secure the victory of Nazi Germany. These Dutch volunteers fought mainly on the Eastern Front, and to a lesser extent, within their own national borders. After the war, the Allied victors regarded them as part of a criminal organization and jointly responsible for the atrocious transgressions of the Nazi regime. In the Netherlands, these men were reviled, branded as traitors and became pariahs in their own country. Those who had devoted themselves to the Nazi regime caused so much grief to the Netherlands that they had to be held accountable. Despite their military achievements, their reputation was damaged forever. The Netherlands supplied the largest contingent of SS soldiers from the occupied North-western European territories. Who were these people? What led them to enlist, and what were the consequences of their choice? An important part of this study involves the autobiographical texts of nineteen Dutch volunteers in the Waffen-SS. These ego-documents recount their own immediate experiences and are mainly fragments from diaries, but there are also letters, individual notes, and memoirs. The ego-documents are placed within the larger historical context to provide an answer to the question of whether these men were only ideologically motivated and unconditional Nazi sympathizers, and for this, their criminal records are also researched. Among other topics, the book discusses their choice to enlist, their experiences at the front, and their involvement in genocide, providing a new perspective on the Eastern Front.
Download or read book Religion and the Populist Radical Right Secular Christianism and Populism in Western Europe written by Nicholas Morieson and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Western Europe, populist radical right parties are calling for a return to Christian or Judeo-Christian values and identity. The growing electoral success of many of these parties may suggest that, after decades of secularisation, Western Europeans are returning to religion. Yet these parties do not tell their supporters to go to church, believe in God, or practise traditional Christian values. Instead, they claim that their respective national identities and cultures are the product of a Christian or Judeo-Christian tradition which either encompasses—or has produced—secular modernity. This book poses the question: if Western European politics is secular, why has religious identity become a core element of populist radical right discourse? To answer this question, Morieson examines the discursive use of religion by two of the most powerful and influential populist radical right parties: The French National Front and the Dutch Party for Freedom. Based on this examination, he argues that the populist radical right has capitalised on a cultural shift engendered by the increasing visibility of Islam in Europe. Western Europeans’ encounter with Islam has revealed the non-universal nature of Western European secularism to Europeans, and demonstrated the secularisation of Christianity into Western European ‘culture.’ This, in turn, has allowed secular French and Dutch citizens to identify themselves—as well as their nation and, ultimately, Western civilisation—as Christian or Judeo-Christian. Seizing on this cultural shift, the author contends that the National Front and Party for Freedom have built successful and similar brands of reactionary politics based on the notion that contemporary secularism is a product of Europe’s Christian heritage and values, and that therefore Muslim immigration is an existential threat to the core values of European politics, including the differentiation of politics and religion, and of church and state. ‘Religion and the Populist Radical Right: Secular Christianism and Populism in Western Europe’ will be of interest to scholars and researchers working on the intersections of Political Science, Sociology, and Religion. It will also appeal to the general audience interested in the relationship between populism in Western Europe and religious identity as it is written in an accessible style.
Download or read book Merrimack The Biography of a Steam Frigate written by Stephen Chapin Kinnaman and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2019-06-30 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Merrimack is the biography of a warship, the U.S. Steam Frigate Merrimack. Her name has long been linked to the first duel of ironclads, an epic Civil War battle fought at Hampton Roads between the Monitor and Merrimack. But over time the myth of the Merrimack—actually the C.S.S. Virginia—displaced the memory of a magnificent antebellum U.S. Navy warship. The steam frigate Merrimack lost her identity. Nearly forgotten is the story of the original Merrimack, the namesake of a class of six powerful war steamers. When built she was the largest vessel in the U.S. Navy, the nation’s first screw-propelled frigate and the earliest major warship to be armed entirely with shell-firing guns. Her first commission took her on a tour of the principal naval stations of Europe. During her second commission, she served as flagship of the Navy’s Pacific Squadron, cruising the shores of Chile, Peru, Panama, Hawaii, Mexico and Nicaragua. Through the copious use of Merrimack’s deck logs, official correspondence, contemporary newspapers and journals, and original construction plans, the author’s research illuminates the mechanical issues and human interactions that indelibly shaped Merrimack’s brief career. The author provides an unparalleled glimpse into the day-to-day events that defined the life of an active antebellum warship. But Merrimack offers more than just a summary of the ship’s operational life. The author, a professional naval architect and marine engineer, dissects the origins of her design and compares the Merrimack class steam frigates to contemporary U.S. and British warships. He also examines the controversy surrounding her troubled engines, documenting their performance using archived drawings and steam log data. In summary, Merrimack embraces the many threads of a bygone era—history, biography, geography and technology—and has woven them together in telling of the story of the U.S. Steam Frigate Merrimack.
Download or read book Reporting from the Wars 1850 2015 written by Barry Turner and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2018-01-15 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the foundations of the world’s first great empires to the empires of today, war has preoccupied human civilisation for as many as 4000 years. It has fascinated, horrified, thrilled, confused, inspired and disgusted mankind since records began. Provoking such a huge range of emotions and reactions and fulfilling all the elements of newsworthiness, it is hardly surprising that war makes ‘good’ news. Modern technological advancements, such as the camera and television, brought the brutality of war into the homes and daily lives of the public. No longer a far-away and out-of-sight affair, the public’s ability to ‘see’ what was happening on the frontline changed not only how wars were fought but why they were fought. Even when a war is considered ‘popular,’ the involvement of the press and the weight of public opinion has led to criticisms that have transformed modern warfare almost in equal measure to the changes brought about by weapon technology. War reporting seeks to look beyond the official story, to understand the very nature of conflict whilst acknowledging that it is no longer simply good versus evil. This edited volume presents a unique insight into the work of the war correspondent and battlefield photographer from the earliest days of modern war reporting to the present. It reveals how, influenced by the changing face of modern warfare, the work of the war correspondent has been significantly altered in style, method, and practice. By combining historical analysis with experiences of modern day war reporting, this book provides an important contribution to the understanding of this complicated profession, which will be of interest to journalists, academics, and students, alike.
Download or read book The Use of History in Putin s Russia written by James C. Pearce and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History is not just a study of past events, but a product and an idea for the modernisation and consolidation of the nation. ‘The Use of History in Putin’s Russia’ examines how the past is perceived in contemporary Russia and analyses the ways in which the Russian state uses history to create a broad coalition of consensus and forge a new national identity. Central to issues of governance and national identity, the Russian state utilises history for the purpose of state-building and reviving Russia’s national consciousness in the twenty-first century. Assessing how history mediates the complex relationship between state and population, this book analyses the selection process of constructing and recycling a preferred historical narrative to create loyal, patriotic citizens, ultimately aiding its modernisation. Different historical spheres of Russian life are analysed in-depth including areas of culture, politics, education, and anniversaries. The past is not just a state matter, a socio-political issue linked to the modernisation process, containing many paradoxes. This book has wide-ranging appeal, not only for professors and students specialising in Russia and the former Soviet Space in the fields of History and Memory, International Relations, Educational Studies, and Intercultural Communication but also for policymakers and think-tanks.
Download or read book Over Here written by Edward Humes and published by Diversion Books. This book was released on 2014-03-09 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Extraordinary stories of ordinary men and women whose lives were changed forever by landmark legislation—and how they went on to change the country. Inspiring war stories are familiar. But what about after-the-war stories? From a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, Over Here is the Greatest Generation’s after-the-war story—vivid portraits of how the original G.I. Bill empowered an entire generation and reinvented the nation. The G.I. Bill opened college education to the masses, transformed America from a nation of renters into a nation of homeowners, and enabled an era of prosperity never before seen in the world. Doctors, teachers, engineers, researchers, and Nobel Prize winners who had never considered college an option rewrote the American Dream thanks to this most visionary legislation. “Vivid . . . Deeply moving, alive with the thrill of people from modest backgrounds discovering that the opportunities available to them were far greater than anything they had dreamed of.” —Los Angeles Times “Poignant . . . The human dramas scattered throughout the narrative are irresistible.” —The Denver Post “Fascinating . . . The book’s statistics are eye-opening, but it’s the numerous personal vignettes that bring this account to life. . . . At its best, these passages are reminiscent of Studs Terkel’s Depression-era and World War II oral histories.” —The Plain Dealer
Download or read book Chances Are written by Richard Russo and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-07-30 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[Russo’s] first novel in ten years hits the ball out of the park. . . . You’ll lap up this gripping, wise, and wonderful summer treat.” —The Boston Globe “A cascade of charm. . . . Russo is an undeniably endearing writer, and chances are this story will draw you back to the most consequential moments in your own life.”—The Washington Post One beautiful September day, three men in their late sixties convene on Martha's Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college in the sixties. They couldn't have been more different then, or even today—Lincoln's a commercial real estate broker, Teddy a tiny-press publisher, and Mickey is a musician beyond his rockin' age. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since a Memorial Day weekend right here on the Vineyard in 1971. Now, forty-five years later, three lives and that of a significant other are put on displaywhile the distant past confounds the present ina relentless squall of surprise and discovery. Shot through with Russo's trademark comedy and humanity, Chances Are . . . introduces a new level of suspense and menace that will quicken the reader's heartbeat throughout this absorbing saga.
Download or read book Vietnam Vanguard written by Ron Boxall and published by ANU Press. This book was released on 2020-02-28 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Vietnam War, and Australia’s part in it, was a major military event, calling for willingness to face death and destruction on the battlefield on the part of those sent there, especially the men of our infantry battalions who formed the spearhead of our forces in Vietnam. For many reasons, the Australian public know relatively little about what our Army did in Vietnam during the war, particularly during the years of our peak commitment, 1965–72. This book attempts to make the true nature of the war clearer to readers, emphasising how hard fought it was during major operations. Twenty-seven of the contributing authors of this book were involved in the 1966 deployment of the 1st Australian Task Force into Phuoc Tuy Province. This formation was the first Australian Army force larger than an infantry battalion group to be deployed into a major war since World War II. 5th Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment (5 RAR), was in the vanguard as the task force’s first element committed to operations to seize and occupy Nui Dat base and embark on establishing dominance over the enemy. The narratives presented in this book give rare insights into thoughts of the soldiers at the time and how they have come to view the Australian Government’s hurried expansion of its initial commitment to that war, the Army’s state of preparedness for that wider involvement, and how those in its forefront adapted to get the job done, both in and out of operations, despite numerous shortcomings in higher level planning. Both professional soldiers and conscripted national servicemen have contributed viewpoints to these pages.
Download or read book The Emperor of All Maladies written by Siddhartha Mukherjee and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-08-09 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, this New York Times bestseller is “an extraordinary achievement” (The New Yorker)—a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist. Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer.
