Download or read book When the Forest Became the Enemy and the Legacy of American Herbicidal Warfare in Vietnam written by Phuong-Lan Thi Bui and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Securing Paradise written by Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-11 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Securing Paradise, Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez shows how tourism and militarism have functioned together in Hawai`i and the Philippines, jointly empowering the United States to assert its geostrategic and economic interests in the Pacific. She does so by interpreting fiction, closely examining colonial and military construction projects, and delving into present-day tourist practices, spaces, and narratives. For instance, in both Hawai`i and the Philippines, U.S. military modes of mobility, control, and surveillance enable scenic tourist byways. Past and present U.S. military posts, such as the Clark and Subic Bases and the Pearl Harbor complex, have been reincarnated as destinations for tourists interested in World War II. The history of the U.S. military is foundational to tourist itineraries and imaginations in such sites. At the same time, U.S. military dominance is reinforced by the logics and practices of mobility and consumption underlying modern tourism. Working in tandem, militarism and tourism produce gendered structures of feeling and formations of knowledge. These become routinized into everyday life in Hawai`i and the Philippines, inculcating U.S. imperialism in the Pacific.

Download or read book The Defoliation of America written by Amy Marie Hay and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In The Defoliation of America, Amy M. Hay profiles the attitudes, understandings, and motivations of grassroots activists who rose to fight the use of phenoxy herbicides (commonly known as the Agent Orange chemicals) in various aspects of American life during the post-WWII era. First introduced in 1946, these chemicals mimic hormones in broadleaf plants, causing them to, essentially, grow to death while grass, grains, and other monocots remain unaffected. By the 1950s, millions of pounds of chemicals were produced annually for use in brush control, weed eradication, other agricultural applications, and forest management. The herbicides allowed suburban lawns to take root and become iconic symbols of success in American life. The production and application of phenoxy defoliants continued to skyrocket in subsequent years, encouraged by market forces and unimpeded by regulatory oversight. By the late 1950s, however, pockets of skepticism and resistance had begun to appear. The trend picked up steam after 1962, when Rachel Carson's Silent Spring directed mainstream attention to the harm modern chemicals were causing in the natural world. But it wasn't until the Vietnam War, when nearly 40 million gallons of Agent Orange and related herbicides were sprayed to clear the canopy and destroy crops in Southeast Asia, that the long-term damage associated with this group of chemicals began to attract widespread attention and alarm. Using a wide array of sources and an interdisciplinary approach, The Defoliation of America is organized in three parts. Part 1 (1945-70) examines the development, use, and responses to the new chemicals used to control weeds and remove jungle growth. As the herbicides became militarized, critics increasingly expressed concerns about defoliation in protests over US imperialism in Southeast Asia. Part 2 (1965-85) profiles three different women who, influenced by Rachel Carson, challenged the uses of the herbicides in the American West, affecting US chemical policy and regulations in the process. Part 3 (1970-95) revisits the impact and legacies of defoliant use after the Vietnam War. From countercultural containment and Nixon's declaration of the "War on Drugs" to the toxic effects on American and Vietnamese veterans, civilians, and their children, it became increasingly obvious that American herbicides damaged far more than forest canopies. With sensitivity to the role gender played in these various protests, Hay's study of the scientists, health and environmental activists, and veterans who fought US chemical regulatory policies and practices reveals the mechanisms, obligations, and constraints of state and scientific authority in midcentury America. Hay also shows how these disparate and mostly forgotten citizen groups challenged the political consensus and were able to shift government and industry narratives of chemical safety"--

Download or read book Hazardous Chemicals written by Ernst Homburg and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2019-08-01 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although poisonous substances have been a hazard for the whole of human history, it is only with the development and large-scale production of new chemical substances over the last two centuries that toxic, manmade pollutants have become such a varied and widespread danger. Covering a host of both notorious and little-known chemicals, the chapters in this collection investigate the emergence of specific toxic, pathogenic, carcinogenic, and ecologically harmful chemicals as well as the scientific, cultural and legislative responses they have prompted. Each study situates chemical hazards in a long-term and transnational framework and demonstrates the importance of considering both the natural and the social contexts in which their histories have unfolded.

Download or read book Human Shields written by Neve Gordon and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Syrian civilians locked in iron cages to veterans joining peaceful indigenous water protectors at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, from Sri Lanka to Iraq and from Yemen to the United States, human beings have been used as shields for protection, coercion, or deterrence. Over the past decade, human shields have also appeared with increasing frequency in antinuclear struggles, civil and environmental protests, and even computer games. The phenomenon, however, is by no means a new one. Describing the use of human shields in key historical and contemporary moments across the globe, Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini demonstrate how the increasing weaponization of human beings has made the position of civilians trapped in theaters of violence more precarious and their lives more expendable. They show how the law facilitates the use of lethal violence against vulnerable people while portraying it as humane, but they also reveal how people can and do use their own vulnerability to resist violence and denounce forms of dehumanization. Ultimately, Human Shields unsettles our common ethical assumptions about violence and the law and urges us to imagine entirely new forms of humane politics.

Download or read book A New Literary History of America written by Greil Marcus and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-07 with total page 1129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America is a nation making itself up as it goes alongÑa story of discovery and invention unfolding in speeches and images, letters and poetry, unprecedented feats of scholarship and imagination. In these myriad, multiform, endlessly changing expressions of the American experience, the authors and editors of this volume find a new American history. In more than two hundred original essays, A New Literary History of America brings together the nationÕs many voices. From the first conception of a New World in the sixteenth century to the latest re-envisioning of that world in cartoons, television, science fiction, and hip hop, the book gives us a new, kaleidoscopic view of what ÒMade in AmericaÓ means. Literature, music, film, art, history, science, philosophy, political rhetoricÑcultural creations of every kind appear in relation to each other, and to the time and place that give them shape. The meeting of minds is extraordinary as T. J. Clark writes on Jackson Pollock, Paul Muldoon on Carl Sandburg, Camille Paglia on Tennessee Williams, Sarah Vowell on Grant WoodÕs American Gothic, Walter Mosley on hard-boiled detective fiction, Jonathan Lethem on Thomas Edison, Gerald Early on Tarzan, Bharati Mukherjee on The Scarlet Letter, Gish Jen on Catcher in the Rye, and Ishmael Reed on Huckleberry Finn. From Anne Bradstreet and John Winthrop to Philip Roth and Toni Morrison, from Alexander Graham Bell and Stephen Foster to Alcoholics Anonymous, Life, Chuck Berry, Alfred Hitchcock, and Ronald Reagan, this is America singing, celebrating itself, and becoming something altogether different, plural, singular, new. Please visit www.newliteraryhistory.com for more information.

Download or read book Veterans and Agent Orange written by Committee to Review the Health Effects in Vietnam Veterans of Exposure to Herbicides and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1994-01-15 with total page 791 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have U.S. military personnel experienced health problems from being exposed to Agent Orange, its dioxin contaminants, and other herbicides used in Vietnam? This definitive volume summarizes the strength of the evidence associating exposure during Vietnam service with cancer and other health effects and presents conclusions from an expert panel. Veterans and Agent Orange provides a historical review of the issue, examines studies of populations, in addition to Vietnam veterans, environmentally and occupationally exposed to herbicides and dioxin, and discusses problems in study methodology. The core of the book presents What is known about the toxicology of the herbicides used in greatest quantities in Vietnam. What is known about assessing exposure to herbicides and dioxin. What can be determined from the wide range of epidemiological studies conducted by different authorities. What is known about the relationship between exposure to herbicides and dioxin, and cancer, reproductive effects, neurobehavioral disorders, and other health effects. The book describes research areas of continuing concern and offers recommendations for further research on the health effects of Agent Orange exposure among Vietnam veterans. This volume will be critically important to both policymakers and physicians in the federal government, Vietnam veterans and their families, veterans organizations, researchers, and health professionals.

Download or read book The Journal of Military History written by and published by . This book was released on 2005-07 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Apollo s Warriors written by Michael E. Haas and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1998-05 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting a fascinating insider's view of U.S.A.F. special operations, this volume brings to life the critical contributions these forces have made to the exercise of air & space power. Focusing in particular on the period between the Korean War & the Indochina wars of 1950-1979, the accounts of numerous missions are profusely illustrated with photos & maps. Includes a discussion of AF operations in Europe during WWII, as well as profiles of Air Commandos who performed above & beyond the call of duty. Reflects on the need for financial & political support for restoration of the forces. Bibliography. Extensive photos & maps. Charts & tables.

Download or read book The Invention of Ecocide written by David Zierler and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the public increasingly questioned the war in Vietnam, a group of American scientists deeply concerned about the use of Agent Orange and other herbicides started a movement to ban what they called “ecocide.” David Zierler traces this movement, starting in the 1940s, when weed killer was developed in agricultural circles and theories of counterinsurgency were studied by the military. These two trajectories converged in 1961 with Operation Ranch Hand, the joint U.S.-South Vietnamese mission to use herbicidal warfare as a means to defoliate large areas of enemy territory. Driven by the idea that humans were altering the world’s ecology for the worse, a group of scientists relentlessly challenged Pentagon assurances of safety, citing possible long-term environmental and health effects. It wasn’t until 1970 that the scientists gained access to sprayed zones confirming that a major ecological disaster had occurred. Their findings convinced the U.S. government to renounce first use of herbicides in future wars and, Zierler argues, fundamentally reoriented thinking about warfare and environmental security in the next forty years. Incorporating in-depth interviews, unique archival collections, and recently declassified national security documents, Zierler examines the movement to ban ecocide as it played out amid the rise of a global environmental consciousness and growing disillusionment with the containment policies of the cold war era.

Download or read book History of Science in America News and Views written by and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The History Use Disposition and Environmental Fate of Agent Orange written by Alvin Lee Young and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-04-21 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For almost four decades, controversy has surrounded the tactical use of herbicides in Southeast Asia by the United States military. Few environmental or occupational health issues have received the sustained international attention that has been focused on Agent Orange, the major tactical herbicide deployed in Southern Vietnam. With the opening and establishment of normal relations between the United States and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1995, the time has come for a thorough re-examination of the military use of Agent Orange and other "tactical herbicides" in Southern Vietnam, and the subsequent actions that have been taking place since their use in Vietnam. The United States Department of Defense has had the major role in all military operations involving the use of tactical herbicides, including that of Agent Orange. This included the Department's purchase, shipment and tactical use of herbicides in Vietnam, its role in the disposition of Agent Orange after Vietnam, its role in conducting long-term epidemiological investigations of the men of Operation RANCH HAND, and its sponsorship of ecological and environmental fate studies. This book was commissioned by The Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Installations and Environment) with the intent of providing documentation of the knowledge on the history, use, disposition and environmental fate of Agent Orange and its associated dioxin.

Download or read book Warfare in a Fragile World written by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Among the crucial problems that confront mankind today are those associated with a degraded environment. This book examines the extent to which warfare and other military activities contribute to such degradation. The military capability to damage the environment and to cause ecological disruption has escalated, and there is no sign that the level of conflict in the world is decreasing. The military use and abuse of each of the several major global habitats -- temperate, tropical, desert, arctic, insular, and oceanic -- are evalusated separately in the light of the civil use and abuse of that habitat"--Dust jacket.

Download or read book RAND in Southeast Asia written by Mai Elliott and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2010-02-08 with total page 695 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume chronicles RAND's involvement in researching insurgency and counterinsurgency in Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand during the Vietnam War era and assesses the effect that this research had on U.S. officials and policies. Elliott draws on interviews with former RAND staff and the many studies that RAND produced on these topics to provide a narrative that captures the tenor of the times and conveys the attitudes and thinking of those involved.

Download or read book Veterans and Agent Orange written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2019-01-20 with total page 739 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1962 to 1971, the U.S. military sprayed herbicides over Vietnam to strip the thick jungle canopy that could conceal opposition forces, to destroy crops that those forces might depend on, and to clear tall grasses and bushes from the perimeters of US base camps and outlying fire-support bases. Mixtures of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T), picloram, and cacodylic acid made up the bulk of the herbicides sprayed. The main chemical mixture sprayed was Agent Orange, a 50:50 mixture of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. At the time of the spraying, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), the most toxic form of dioxin, was an unintended contaminant generated during the production of 2,4,5-T and so was present in Agent Orange and some other formulations sprayed in Vietnam. Because of complaints from returning Vietnam veterans about their own health and that of their children combined with emerging toxicologic evidence of adverse effects of phenoxy herbicides and TCDD, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine was asked to perform a comprehensive evaluation of scientific and medical information regarding the health effects of exposure to Agent Orange, other herbicides used in Vietnam, and the various components of those herbicides, including TCDD. Updated evaluations were conducted every two years to review newly available literature and draw conclusions from the overall evidence. Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 11 (2018) examines peer-reviewed scientific reports concerning associations between various health outcomes and exposure to TCDD and other chemicals in the herbicides used in Vietnam that were published between September 30, 2014, and December 31, 2017, and integrates this information with the previously established evidence database.

Download or read book America History and Life written by and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides historical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes information abstracted from over 2,000 journals published worldwide.

Download or read book The Chemical Scythe written by Alastair Hay and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-11 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Chemical Scythe is the first book in a projected series to be published by Plenum Press in association with the International Disaster Institute. The aim of the series, Disaster Research in Practice, is to provide scientific and readable accounts on the most urgent areas of disaster research. It is fitting, therefore, that Dr. Hay's investigation into the nature and effects of dioxins heralds the new series. The problem of chemical hazards is one that we will have to learn to live with in future decades. Dr. Hay's book is an authoritative account of the chemistry and proven and potential effects of dioxins, and of the impli cations for safety planning. He concludes with a cautious, yet optimistic note-that indeed we can learn to live with such hazards, providing that we are prepared to understand and plan for the unexpected. The accident at Seveso in 1976 alerted the world to an imperfectly un derstood but immensely alarming environmental hazard. Public debate and argument as to the implications of dioxins and, indeed, the use of herbicides as aggressive weapons in Vietnam, rage on. And yet it is only through the painstaking research exemplified in this book that it will eventually be pos sible to promote the vital accountability on the part of industrialists and governments.