Planted Flags tells an extraordinary story about the mundane uses of law and landscape in the war between Israelis and Palestinians. The book is structured around the two dominant tree landscapes in Israel/Palestine: pine forests and olive groves. The pine tree, which is usually associated with the Zionist project of afforesting the Promised Land, is contrasted with the olive tree, which Palestinians identify as a symbol of their steadfast connection to the land. What is it that makes these seemingly innocuous, even natural, acts of planting, cultivating, and uprooting trees into acts of war? How is this war reflected, mediated, and, above all, reinforced through the polarization of the natural landscape into two juxtaposed landscapes? And what is the role of law in this story? Planted Flags explores these questions through an ethnographic study. By telling the story of trees through the narratives of military and government officials, architects, lawyers, Palestinian and Israeli farmers, and Jewish settlers, the seemingly static and mute landscape assumes life, expressing the cultural, economic, and legal dynamics that constantly shape and reshape it.
Alongside the upsurge in violence that came with the downfall of the Oslo era in the early 2000s, a new wave of documentaries emerged that centered on Palestinians' and Mizrahim's (Jews of Middle Eastern origins) historical and lived experiences of pain and oppression across Israel-Palestine and beyond. The documentaries challenge the systemic removal of self-represented Palestinian and Mizrahi pain from mainstream media and the public realm dominated by Israel. . This book explores how Palestinians and Mizrahim perform their long endured pain on screen. Analysing key documentary films from the first decade of the 2000s, Shirly Bahar offers a nuanced reading of the cinematic documentary corpus emerging from Israel-Palestine, as well Palestinians' and Mizrahim's different and unequal yet interrelated forms of oppression and racialization under Israeli rule. While pain sets them apart, the documentary representations of pain of Palestinians and Mizrahim invite us to consider reconnection by focusing on the very relational nature of pain.
This spirited tribute to Old Glory will inspire readers, young and old, to take a new look at the greatest emblem of the United States of America. With patriotic verse and historical facts, THE FLAG WE LOVE explores how our flag has become an enduring part of our nation's proud history and heritage. From its earliest designs to its role in peace-time and war, the Star-Spangled Banner will take on a whole new meaning for all readers. The bold, rich illustrations by Ralph Masiello highlight significant points in history, as well as commonplace moments of American life, when our flag symbolizes the people and ideals of the United States of America.
A few sea captains, a couple of college professors, a battle-hardened general, a senator, a congressman, and a knavish adventurer: What could such men have in common? In addition to an eye upon the broader world and a streak of independence, each had a vision of the United States as a model sovereign. All were part of an American effort to create an overseas empire--one that would avoid the mistakes of the European powers and redefine the face of imperialism. Beginning with the 1839 voyage of Captain Charles Wilkes that opened American relations with Samoa, here are biographies of 12 men instrumental in the incorporation of America's five island dependencies. Besides Wilkes, it covers Richard W. Meade III, who negotiated a treaty with Samoa; Albert B. Steinberger, premier of Samoa; Henry Glass, who took Guam for America; Nelson A. Miles, who led the 1898 conquest of Puerto Rico; B. F. Tilley, first governor of American Samoa; Joseph B. Foraker, first congressional overseer of the possessions; William A. Jones, anti-imperialist and reformer; Frank McIntyre, military administrator of America's holdings; Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., governor of Puerto Rico; Paul M. Pearson, first civilian governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands; and Anthony M. Solomon, who inaugurated the acquisition of the Northern Mariana Islands in 1963.
Appointed by President Lincoln to command the Gulf Department in November 1862, Nathaniel Prentice Banks was given three assignments, one of which was to occupy some point in Texas. He was told that when he united his army with Grant’s, he would assume command of both. Banks, then, had the opportunity to become the leading general in the West—perhaps the most important general in the war. But he squandered what successes he had, never rendezvoused with Grant’s army, and ultimately orchestrated some of the greatest military blunders of the war. “Banks’s faults as a general,” writes author Stephen A. Dupree, “were legion.” The originality of Planting the Union Flag in Texas lies not just in the author’s description of the battles and campaigns Banks led, nor in his recognition of the character traits that underlay Banks’s decisions. Rather, it lies in how Dupree synthesizes his studies of Banks’s various actions during his tour of duty in and near Texas to help the reader understand them as a unified campaign. He skillfully weaves together Banks’s various attempts to gain Union control of Texas with his other activities and shines the light of Banks’s character on the resulting events to help explain both their potential and their shortcomings. In the end, readers will have a holistic understanding of Banks’s “appalling” failure to win Texas and may even be led to ask how the post–Civil War era might have been different had he been successful. This fine study will appeal to Civil War buffs and fans of military and Texas history.
This monograph forms part of the Indochina Monograph series written by senior military personnel from the former Army of the Republic of Vietnam who served against the northern communist invasion. War and politics posed many challenges to South Vietnam’s military leadership. Unlike his counterpart in some countries, the Vietnamese military commander was not simply a leader of men in combat. Depending on the level of command, he had to play his part in national politics, be himself a grass roots politician, or engage in political warfare. To achieve success, he was often expected to possess several qualities not always required of a professional military leader. The requirements of leadership, therefore, sometimes transcended the conventional framework of accepted rules and principles. Given these requirements and the fallibility of human nature, it had not always been easy to evaluate the total performance of our leadership. The dilemma we faced was that while professional competence during actual combat was a critical criteria, we could not tolerate deliberate aberrations in moral and social codes. In my analysis of the successes and failures of our leadership, I have endeavored to be fair and objective. If I seem to be laudatory of some officers while critical of others, it is not my intention to embarrass any individual. Performance has been the sole basis for all of my evaluations.
