From City of the Oppressed to City of the Free: Tracing the Progress of Decolonization in African Cities

Several African historians have famously recognized the challenges created by colonialism in colonial cities. Colonial rule has been argued to have brought modernization and urbanization to Africans. On the other hand, African colonial cities were often sites of terror, inequality and racial segregation where those colonized were made disenfranchised. Thus, what became of these former colonial African cities that were designed to promote European superiority? How did African leaders and urban planners overcome the challenges inherited from colonialism? Finally, how did the ideologies of African postcolonial leaders influence urban plans? Through the case studies of Kenya’s capital Nairobi, Tanzania’s capital Dodoma, and Nigeria’s capital Abuja, this paper evaluates the methods and policies adopted by postcolonial governments to rid African cities of harmful colonial legacies and consequently decolonize the African urban space

The Adirondack Chronology

The Adirondack Chronology is intended to be a useful resource for researchers and others interested in the Adirondacks and Adirondack history.https://digitalworks.union.edu/arlpublications/1000/thumbnail.jp

The Geography of the British Northern Interior Frontier of Defence During the Haldimand Revolutionary War Administration of Quebec, 1778-1782

This study examines the geography of the British Interior Frontier of Defence, between the colony of Quebec and the rebel colonies of America, during the Revolutionary War administration of Sir Frederick Haldimand (1778-1782). The study has three aims: firstly, to map the location of the frontier, secondly, to identify its essential characteristics and thirdly, to describe its defence administration. A reconstruction approach has been taken in order to uncover the geographical elements of the frontier as perceived by eighteenth-century administrators. To a large extent the identification of the interior frontier of defence was made from primary source material, chiefly the Haldimand Papers and historic maps. One research problem was the matching of primary source locations with modern maps and field identification. The defence frontier, unlike the pre-conquest frontier of Eccles, was a frontier of the colony of Quebec, which exhibited several characteristics. Firstly, it was a zone of tension as with marchland, being organized on a semi-permanent military basis. Secondly, it was sparsely settled thus limiting the amount of provisions that could be generated for defensive activities. Thirdly, its military government was imposed from outside, giving rise not only to distance decay and the diminishment of central power, but also to reactions from frontier settlers who wished to govern themselves. Fourthly, the degree of administrative control necessary to administer frontier defence precluded the operation of lawlessness and anarchy, postulated by Turner for his frontier. Fifthly, the frontier exhibited both integrating and separating characteristics, depending of the volatile political allegiances within it. Sixthly, the frontier did no exhibit a well-defined line of confrontation, although there was a general accordance with colonial frontier forts and settlements, with arteries of travel, and with the Upper Post administrative centers. The British imperial administration of the frontier was based on two major policy directives: the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and the Quebec Act of 1774. However, due to the exigencies of war, the Quebec Act was never fully instituted along the Upper Post administrative chain and defence frontier. The defence frontier was governed by the Upper Posts of Niagara, Detroit and Michilimackinac, with Quebec and Montreal as the command headquarters for the colony as a whole. It was administered chiefly through the Military and Indian Departments, which instituted policy for frontier defence. Defence activities, chiefly campaigns, raids, and scouts, were concentrated on the Mohawk Valley, the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers, Fort Pitt and the Allegheny River, the Ohio and its tributaries and the Illinois. Due to the problem provisioning military activities during the War of Revolution the geography of the interior frontier of defence was largely delimited by provisioning sites such as forts, settlements, forge and mill sites and agricultural areas.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD

British scientists and soldiers in the First World War with special reference to ballistics and chemical warfare

This thesis asks how the Great War affected physical science in Britain. It examines how graduate scientists and army officers worked together in the War, concentrating on the two fields of ballistics and chemical warfare. In these fields many previous accounts have discussed only the civilians. This study gives an outline of the various military institutions where soldiers in the technical corps (Artillery and Engineers) were trained, and where the state made, tested and stored arms. It argues that these corps had a characteristic technical culture, in which science was not studied for its own sake, but always with an end in view that would benefit the state: mathematics, astronomy and geodesy for survey, geology for public works, and so on. This was quite different from the professional values of pure science and mathematics. The thesis sees the effects of the War on science on two levels, the personal and the structural. Those engaged in war-work responded very variously: some had the directions of their interests greatly changed, so that the ballistics work accelerated the growth in numerical analysis; for others the War was simply an interruption, either a destructive one, or one that was rewarding but little related to the scientist’s academic career. Several of those who had done war-work maintained their links with the military for the rest of their lives. Structurally, the state increased its support for applied science with military applications, at the National Physical Laboratory, Famborough, Porton, and Woolwich. The scale of academic experiments, however, did not grow correspondingly after the War. After the War, the Army significantly increased its research activities (though constrained by limited budgets), and incorporated university teaching in the training of its engineering personnel, initially as a stop-gap, but then by choice.Open acces

HM 30: Reflections on Naval History: Collected Essays

Reflections on Naval History: Collected Essays, by John B. Hattendorf, Ernest J. King Professor Emeritus of Maritime History, Naval War College, is the third in a series of volumes that bring together scholarly writings originally published in a variety of specialized journals and other publications, many of which are obscure and difficult to access. It includes papers originally appearing in the years 2010–20. The earlier volumes are Naval History and Maritime Strategy: Collected Essays (2000), and Talking about Naval History: A Collection of Essays (2011). The latter volume also appeared under the imprimatur of the Naval War College Press.https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/usnwc-historical-monographs/1029/thumbnail.jp

Soldiers from Experience: The Emergence of Tactical Culture in Sherman's Fifteenth Army Corps, 1862-63

This study examines the organic emergence and evolution of discernible patterns in the tactical behavior of Major General William T. Sherman's Fifteenth Army Corps of the Army of the Tennessee across its first year operating within the western theater of the American Civil War. It analyzes the ways in which specific experiences and patterns of meaning-making within the corps's regiments and batteries led to the emergence of a distinctive corps-level “tactical culture.” This concept, introduced for the first time within the dissertation, is defined as a collection of shared, historically-derived, normative ideas, beliefs, assumptions, and habitual behaviors that inform a subordinate military command’s particular approach to the prosecution of its assigned objectives on or off the battlefield. The dissertation employs the research methodologies of “new military history” to inform an older “traditional” historiography in an effort to frame what might be called a “new operational history.” While historians frequently assert that generals somehow impart their character to their commands, this dissertation argues that the reverse was the case within Sherman's corps. Although Sherman habitually sought a frontal penetration of entrenched Rebel lines, a combination of factors – most especially the heavily wooded terrain of the Mississippi Valley – repeatedly prevented his corps from achieving such objectives. As a result of their perpetual failure, those in the ranks lost confidence whenever called upon to assault enemy lines, leaving Sherman with “no troops that can be made to assault.” Instead, heavily cluttered Western battlefields rewarded the employment of open-order “clouds” of skirmishers. While these “clouds” could not breach fortified Rebel positions, they could suppress enemy units and allow for maneuver elsewhere. Simultaneously, repeated experiences of success in raiding operations inspired an embrace of “war in earnest” tactics among those in the ranks traumatized from bloody repulse on the battlefield. By 1864, the corps reliably displayed a tactical culture borne of its particular past experiences which helped to shape its behavior during the campaigns for Atlanta, Savannah, and the Carolinas. An awareness of this tactical culture informed Sherman's employment of the command, as well as his larger operational art during his famous late war campaigns.Doctor of Philosoph