the ascendant historian

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2024-06-28T09:38:48-07:00

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2024-06-28T09:46:21-07:00

Editor's Note

2024-06-28T09:42:18-07:00

The Communist Crusade: How Covert Operations in Nicaragua Undermined the War on Drugs

2024-06-28T09:53:53-07:00

One of the legacies of the Ronald Reagan Presidency was how his staunch anti-communist demeanour shaped American foreign diplomacy. Yet, a lesser-studied connection is established regarding how Reagan’s international priorities influenced his domestic policies. In particular, this paper examines the case study that the overlapping but mutually incompatible goals of undermining communist influence in Nicaragua and domestically waging a “successful” war on drugs provide. As a result, Reagan’s approaches to domestic and foreign policy are better understood as counterweights that mutually reinforce, contradict, and collide to create asymmetrical impacts. Reagan’s Cold War involvement in Nicaragua reveals that marginalised and radicalised peoples suffered at the hands of foreign policy prioritisations. Reagan’s overriding desire to eliminate the “evil” empire encouraged the administration to turn a blind eye to Nicaraguan anti-communist sympathisers who imported illicit drugs into America to fund the war effort. In turn, the American victory in the United States’ ongoing War on Drugs proved increasingly elusive. Ultimately Reagan’s paradoxical policies illuminate the danger of justifying and prioritizing foreign policy under the rationale of the ends justifying the means.

Stalin’s War on Religion

2024-06-28T09:57:54-07:00

This paper examines the context, actions, and motivation of Joseph Stalin’s war on religion between the years of 1929 and 1941. This paper documents Stalin’s context through the works of Karl Marx, anti-religious precedents set by Vladimir Lenin, and Stalin’s own personal views on religion. Anti-religious actions of Stalin examined within this paper include the Law on Religious Associations, reshaping of the Gregorian calendar, support for the League of Militant Godless, and the Great Purge. This paper argues that Stalin’s extreme levels of religious repression were done not with the sole intention of fulfilling communist ideology but rather held a distinct power-oriented motive. Religion was a state-undermining influence to Stalin’s communist regime through religious followers’ allocation of authority to a higher power rather than Stalin and the Communist Party. Furthermore, religion propagated ideals contradictory to the state. Stalin eases his anti-religious policies during and after World War II when it aided in stabilising his position of power proving that following communist doctrine was not his sole motivation.

The Erasure of Indigenous Presence in the Settler Geographic Imagination: 19th Century Vancouver Island

2024-06-28T10:01:47-07:00

This essay examines the colonial constructions of Indigenous land usage on Vancouver Island in the 19 th century. It turns first to the historiography of Indigenous presence in the Pacific-Northwest region to understand how Indigenous people had been represented in scholarship in the 19th and 20th centuries. For decades it was believed that Indigenous groups did not participate in the stewardship of their land or did not greatly impact it with their presence. By examining more recent scholarship on Indigenous agriculture this is proved to be a misrepresentation. It then turns to cartographic and ethnographic material produced by colonial officials and settlers that depicts Indigenous land usage and occupation in the mid-19th century, which used the purposeful erasure of Indigenous presence to justify colonial settlement. It combines the social stereotypes of the era with the perceived legitimising character of maps and photographs to understand how the settler’s geographic imagination did not include the presence of Indigenous peoples on Vancouver Island. These cartographic and ethnographic materials created inaccurate representations of how Indigenous peoples managed and lived on their lands, confining them to small and untouched areas. It was only through the purposeful space created in these documents that a view of British Columbia and Vancouver Island being pristine, untouched, and untapped wildernesses could be born. The photographs of E.S. Curtis and colonial era maps of Victoria will be pivotal to this research, bringing to focus the world view of the Vancouver Island settler.

Japanese Pan-Asianism… and… Hawai‘i?: The omission of Hawai‘i in Japanese Pan-Asian Thinking

2024-06-28T10:05:03-07:00

Pan-Asianism, a Twentieth-Century Japanese ideology, provides a robust explanation for Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. It proposed an encompassing identity for Asia that placed Japan at the centre and appealed to many in Japan. A militant version of the ideology became dominant and became the framework for Japan’s justification of its expansionist policy to rid Asia of Western influence. On the surface, this ideology has sometimes appeared genuinely anti-colonial in theory if not in practice. However, scholarship on Pan-Asianism has failed to take into account the place of Hawai‘i, the site of Japan’s attack against the United States. There were two main approaches to Hawai‘i in Japanese thought at the time. Firstly, the mainstream Pan-Asian propaganda ignored Hawai‘i and presented the attack on Pearl Harbor as an attack on the United State in general. Nevertheless, an additional specific thread of Pan-Asian thought at the time considered Hawai‘i to be a part of Asia and in need of incorporation into Japan’s Pan-Asian project. In some corners of Japanese thinking in the wake of the opening of hostilities, thinkers drafted plans for the governance of the islands under Japan. These two contrasting strands of thought and rhetoric show the colonial nature of the Pan-Asian ideology as it imposed whatever identity on Hawai‘i that Japan found most convenient. For Japan, Hawai‘i was a part of the United States when Japan needed to demonstrate victory over the West and it was a colonised Asian territory when Japan needed to justify annexation plans. Scholarship on Hawai‘i demonstrates that the islands and their Indigenous people are Pacific Islanders rather than Asians in need of Japanese liberation. This research helps us understand Japan’s ideology, the Pacific War, and the important place of Hawai’i in Pacific and global history.

The Destabilizing Impacts of the Portuguese Colonial War

2024-06-28T10:08:46-07:00

The Portuguese Colonial War was a prolonged conflict that lasted from 1961 to 1974. It was fought between the Portuguese government attempting to retain control over its overseas imperial colonies and the nascent independence movements in Angola, Mozambique, and Portuguese Guinea. The conflict ended in 1974 with the Carnation Revolution, which brought an end to the far-right Estado Novo dictatorship in Portugal. This article reflects on the many disruptive impacts of the Portuguese Colonial War that destabilized the country and led to the Carnation Revolution. It places these impacts into three categories: international factors, domestic factors, and military factors. The international factors included the diplomatic pressure from the American and Soviet alliances against Portugal's imperialist war and the 1973 oil crisis that caused mass inflation in Portugal. The domestic factors included a metropole that was experiencing mass emigration as waves of young men fled the country to escape conscription, while the social safety net in the metropole was simultaneously overwhelmed with injured veterans returning from the front. Additionally, Portugal was industrialising its economy over the course of the war at an extreme clip, which disrupted the social cohesion built on its agricultural economy. The military also played a crucial role as relations between the civilian government and military leaders became increasingly tense over the course of the war, especially following the death of António de Oliveira Salazar. This article argues that these three sets of factors combined to destabilize the country thereby priming Portugal for the Carnation Revolution.

Rails to Ruin: The E&N and Settler Views of Vancouver Island

2024-06-28T10:15:44-07:00

The construction and operation of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo railway (E&N) on Vancouver Island is a relatively understudied area of British Columbia history. This is despite the place of the E&N in effectively creating the current systems of industrial exploitation and recreational use on Vancouver Island. The E&N and its land grant shaped the legal, political, military, ecological, and geographic history of the region. Legally and politically, the construction of the E&N was the impetus for mass land seizure by the Provincial government. Militarily, the railroad was important in securing the British Empire’s operations in the Pacific, supplying an important coaling station. Ecologically, the E&N opened much of the island to exploitation in the form of mining and logging, as well as settlement. Geographically, the E&N connected the island to Victoria by land, transforming the relationship of people to the island both temporally (it was faster to travel than on steamship) and conceptually (new stops along the line participated in placemaking for settlers and visitors). I examine the place of the E&N in these historical areas and contextualize the seizure of aboriginal title on Vancouver Island in terms of three competing views of landscape: pastoral, industrial, and recreational. These three views provide an excellent lens for understanding the transformation of Vancouver Island throughout the 20th century, including the displacement of Indigenous peoples, the development of industry, recreational uses, and even early conservationist views.

Holodomor: Understanding Joseph Stalin’s Genocide

2024-06-28T10:16:21-07:00

The Holodomor, Ukrainian for “death by hunger,” was one of the deadliest famines known to man: over 4 million Ukrainian lives perished during this famine. Ninety years later, this famine remains an important reminder of the brutality suffered by people under the regime of Joseph Stalin. As a result of the push for increased industrialisation in the wake of World War I, collectivisation was implemented under Stalin’s Five Year Plan. This practice saw the collectivisation of peasant-run farms into state-owned farms, removing individual autonomy and leading to popular outrage. By 1932 harvests had taken a large hit, leading to several years of poor grain production. Needing food to fuel industrialisation, Stalin brought forth brutal measures of food procurement targeted against the peasant farmer population, taking personal food stores and retaliating against those who resisted. The Ukrainian peasant population, which was the single largest producer of grain, was hit much harder than other areas within the USSR and suffered unique discrimination not felt by other groups. Based on the United Nations’ definition of “genocide,” this paper analyses how Stalin purposely targeted the Ukrainian peasant population with food procurement, internal isolation, and refusal of aid to answer the question: is the Holodomor definable as genocide?

The Preservation of Holocaust Memory during the War in Ukraine

2024-06-28T10:18:56-07:00

On 24 February 2022, the Russian Federation illegally invaded the free and democratic nation of Ukraine. Amidst the devastating destruction and bloodshed, Ukrainian civilians and officials have been fighting hard to preserve their nation’s culture and history from the invaders who wish to erase all trace of Ukraine’s unique identity. This fight includes the preservation of Holocaust memory in Ukraine. After a missile strike severely damaged the Drobytsky Yar Holocaust monument in Kharkiv in March 2022, the question has been raised of how to effectively preserve Holocaust memory during times of modern warfare. To attempt to answer this unprecedented question, it is necessary to refer back to the history of the Holocaust in Ukraine, the decades long fight for proper Holocaust memorialization, and what is currently being done by Ukrainians as they fight to protect their homeland, their history, and their cultural identity.

Dangerous vs. Domestic: Cold War Representations of Female Sexuality

2024-06-28T10:22:04-07:00

As the Cold War continued to develop and the threat of the atomic bomb loomed, atomic age anxieties surrounding the bomb bled into the public sphere and references to the bomb were seen throughout popular culture. Comparisons between female sexuality and the bomb were particularly popular. These representations tended to take two distinct forms: the sexually liberated, unwed “bombshell” and the domestic, submissive housewife. The popularity of the term “bombshell” directly attributed beautiful women to something both dangerous and intriguing while the housewife represented the “taming” of this force. Following the end of the second World War, the American people desired to return to stable and peaceful times. With this came the embracing of traditional values and the stressed importance of a strong family unit. Soon, any behaviour that did not align with the constraints of these “family values” were seen as immoral and associated with communism. This pressure was focused heavily on women who did not adhere to these societal standards. This paper will analyse the different representations of female sexuality through the lens of popular culture. In particular, it will focus on the dangerous, sexually charged “bombshell” and the submissive, domesticated housewife.

The Mormon Trail: A Unique Phenomenon?

2024-06-28T10:30:14-07:00

Contemporary scholars focusing on Mormonism continue to compare the Mormon Trail to the Israelite Exile, as well as emphasising that the trail was more of an anomaly compared to the Oregon and California trails. This notion is explored in this paper and aims to prove that Mormon tradition and collective memory has been changed to fit this comparison. As a result of focusing solely on the differences of the Mormon Trail between other trails, scholars have neglected to include it within the pattern of westward migrations during the 19th century. This paper aims to do the above, thereby situating The Mormon Trail within the context of the large migration patterns that occurred during the 19th century, as well as outlining aspects that make the trail distinct. While the Mormon trail indeed exhibited differences from the other trails, it must be mentioned that some commonalities can be found. The trail however, proves to be unique in the context of the Mormon faith and family organisation. Difficulties with travelling, responses to violence and the persecution of their faith, were some of the elements that set the Mormons apart from the other migration trails explored in this paper. The importance that the family played along the trek to Utah is also delved into. Children often assisted with various tasks on the journey. The role that diseases such as Scurvy and Cholera played in these westward migrations is also explored, which proves to be a linking factor between the Oregon, California and Mormon trails.

The Dutch Patriotic Revolution: Prussians, Patriots, Orangists, and Frogs

2024-06-28T10:33:10-07:00

Often overshadowed, and sometimes forgotten, the Dutch Patriot Revolution in 1787 is seen by modern historians today as an influential and important step towards democracy in Europe. The United Dutch Provinces, a rare republic in eighteenth-century Europe, began a slow revolution in 1781 after a pamphlet was published and distributed – Aan het Volk van Nederlands (An Address to the People of the Netherlands) – which lit the (already built) fire of revolution. The revolution climaxed in 1787 after a 10-day siege of Amsterdam and the invasion of a 26,000-strong Prussian army. This paper examines how the attitudes and concerns of the Dutch people allowed the Address to mobilise the Republic into action. This work also surveys the major developments of the revolution during its six-year span with a focus on two specific issues identified in the Address – repeated alliances with England and a dysfunctional military. By examining a set of four contemporary prints, this paper attempts to determine whether or not the revolutionaries were successful in meeting the goals diagnosed in the Address.

Support for Napoleon’s Empire: Maneuvering, Manipulating, and Managing Public Opinion

2024-06-28T10:36:36-07:00

When Napoleon I crowned himself the Emperor of France, he had seemingly brought an end to the First French Republic under the auspices of public support. In his ascendency from Consul, he had employed plebiscites, invoked his military victories, and appealed to French Catholics. However, the public opinion of Napoleon I was not always as positive as it seemed, requiring political manoeuvring for the purpose of maintaining a visage of popular support. “Support for Napoleon’s Empire: Manoeuvring, Manipulating and Managing Public Opinion” is an analysis of the sources and mechanisms of support that allowed Napoleon I to rise from Consul to Emperor of France. Focusing primarily on the period of 1799 to 1804, this essay takes a textual analysis approach, examining secondary sources for two purposes. The first purpose is to determine where public support for Napoleon was legitimate, and where public opinion was managed, while the second purpose is to understand what mechanisms were employed in order to manage this public opinion. The essay begins with an analysis of the negative perception of the Directory among the French population, particularly its economic and democratic instability, to understand why support for a new regime arose. In the next section, the essay examines the plebiscites of 1800, 1802, and 1804, to identify and analyse the mechanisms that created the image of widespread support for Napoleon I, such as the simple design of the plebiscites and the public nature in which they were carried out. Finally, the essay concludes with an analysis of the organic and inorganic support that Napoleon I could draw on from within the French populace, focusing on that which was derived from Napoleon I’s military record, the Concordat with the Catholic Church, and a significant propaganda campaign.

A Lesbian Historiography of the French Revolution

2024-06-28T10:39:10-07:00

Flings between the Queen of France and an actress at the Comédie Française, philosophical pornographic pamphleteers, and secret sapphic societies that threatened male supremacy formed a small yet rich historiography of lesbianism in 18th-century France. "A Lesbian Historiography of the French Revolution" analyses the works of various historians such as Susan S. Lanser, Jeffrey Merrick, and Bryant T. Ragan Jr concerning these topics. By analysing the shifting attitudes towards lesbianism, investigating the legal ramifications of homosexuality, studying novels and pamphlets from the time, and profiling those accused of lesbianism, historians have uncovered a rich history of lesbianism before and during the French Revolution. Though homosexuality was decriminalised during the revolution, lesbianism's close association with the second estate was used to condemn both members of the nobility and homosexuality.