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The History of Freemasonry in Virginia
1998Richard A. Rutyna and Peter C. Stewart
This book, a product of collaboration and cooperation between two non-Masonic historians and the Grand Lodge of Virginia, is an objective, comprehensive study of the history of Freemasonry in the state of Virginia. The authors relate a fascinating chronicle of Freemasonry, from its British origins two hundred years ago to today. Along the way, they describe the colorful figures who populate this history and debunk many myths about Freemasonry. [From Amazon.com]
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American Command of the Sea Through Carriers, Codes, and the Silent Service
1995Carl Boyd
American Command of the Sea examines the development of Allied code breaking expertise, the role of signal intelligence in the global war at sea in the 1940s, and the ways in which the modern American navy has been shaped by the experience of World War II. This books draws on recently declassified documents to show that many Allied naval victories hinged on the work of a small, multinational group of Allied code breakers.
World War II forever changed the nature of naval warfare. Aircraft carriers and submarines, in particular, were used to devastating effect against Axis forces in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, ultimately tilting the conflict in favor of the Allies. As American Command of the Sea explains, the effectiveness of these two types of warships was greatly enhanced by communications or signal intelligence.
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Mexico and the Survey of Public Lands: The Management of Modernization, 1876-1911
1994Robert H. Holden
In shaping modern Mexico, few events have been more crucial than the division of public lands. Drawing on previously untapped sources, Holden offers the first systematic study of prerevolutionary Mexico's public land surveys. He examines the role of private survey companies hired by the governments of Manuel González and Porfirio Díaz, demonstrating that the companies were both the agents and the beneficiaries of the greatest single movement of public property in Mexico's history. In a controversial process involving landholders, judges, lawyers, and politicians, survey companies reaped in compensation one-third of all the land they surveyed. Holden reports that in one decade, from 1883 to 1893, up to fifty private companies received 18.4 million hectares of land, approximately one-tenth the total area of Mexico.
Basing his study on official archival records, Holden details the conflicts between private and public interests, challenging long-held impressions about the surveying companies. He shows how the state used private surveyors to insulate itself from the politically risky consequences of the surveys. Rejecting the view that the companies were the instruments of a land-hungry elite that worked alongside a corrupt government to plunder the peasantry, Holden concludes that the federal government generally respected landholders' claims in disputes with the surveyors. [From Amazon.com]
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Hitler’s Japanese Confidant: General Ōshima Hiroshi and MAGIC Intelligence, 1941-1945
1993Carl Boyd (Author) and Peter Paret (Contributor)
In 1940 the U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Service broke the Japanese diplomatic code. In 1975 Oshima Hiroshi, Japan's ambassador to Berlin during World War II, died, never knowing that the hundreds of messages he transmitted to Tokyo had been fully decoded by the Americans and whisked off to Washington, providing a major source of information for the Allies on Nazi activities.
Resurrecting Oshima's decoded communications, which had remained classified for several decades, Carl Boyd provides a unique look at the Nazis from the perspective of a close foreign observer and ally. He uses Oshima's own words to reveal the thought and strategies of Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking Nazis, with whom Oshima associated.
In addition to providing illuminating insight into Nazi activities and attitudes--military buildup in North Africa, the unwillingness to accept a separate peace with the Soviets--Boyd illustrates the functions of MAGIC. He demonstrates how that intelligence, gathered by teams of American cryptographers, influenced Allied strategy and helped bring about the downfall of Hitler and his Japanese confidant. [From the publisher]
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Don't Grieve after Me: The Black Experience in Virginia, 1619-1986
1986Phillip David Morgan, Michael Hucles, and Sarah S. hughes
Three chronological essays present an historical overview of the African-American experience in Virginia from 1619-1986.
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The Extraordinary Envoy: General Hiroshi Ōshima and Diplomacy in the Third Reich, 1934-1939
1980Carl Boyd
Ōshima approved of the militarism and totalitarianism evident in the Third Reich when he arrived in Berlin as the Japanese military attaché in 1934. Ōshima’s personal ability and initiative sub rosa greatly enhanced his importance in German-Japanese relations. Scenes between the spirited military attaché and National Socialist functionaries soon followed, the like of which are often enacted in higher places and by more important people. Ōshima’s behavior was exceptional. He would become Japan’s Ambassador to Germany in 1938 when the military gained greater influence in the Japanese government. Though many Japanese army officers admired the German military, Ōshima represented an extreme military point of view, and he was infatuated particularly with the armed forces of Hitler’s Third Reich. [From the “Introduction”]
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Old Dominion University: A Half Century of Service
1980John R. Sweeney
Dr. James R. Sweeney has written an informative account of the university's first half-century. It is a history of growth from a small two-year branch of the College of William and Mary to a state-supported university that has gained its own national reputation.
[From the "Introduction," by Alfred B. Rollins Jr, Aug. 14, 1980]
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McClure's Magazine and the Muckrakers
1970Harold S. Wilson
McClure's was the leading muckraking journal among the many which flourished at the turn of the century. Both a literary and political magazine, It introduced exciting new writers to the American scene (Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, A. Conan Doyle) and fearlessly championed the important causes of the day (from betterment of conditions in the coal mines to antitrust measures).
This is the story of McClure's lifespan, beginning in Ohio when Samuel McClure gathered around himself a talented group of editors and writers (among them Willa Cather. Frank Norris. Stephen Crane, O. Henry. Hamlin Garland) and continuing to the magazine’s last days in New York City. The growing concern of the staff about American urban and commercial life led to such exposes as Ida Tarbell's History of Standard Oil and Lincoln Steffens' Shame of the Cities. McClure's was a channel for those determined to combat the ills of society, and one of the first voices of the emerging Progressive Party. [From Amazon.com]
A gallery of books by faculty from the Department of History, College of Arts & Letters, Old Dominion University.
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