Bøker utgitt av University of Oklahoma Press

The Romans who established their rule on three continents as well as the Europeans who initially established new homes in North America interacted with communities of Indigenous peoples with their own histories and cultures. Sweeping in its scope and rigorous in its scholarship, Empires and Indigenous Peoples expands our understanding of their historical interrelations and raises general questions about the nature of the various imperial encounters. In this book, leading scholars of ancient Roman and pre-twentieth-century anglophone America examine the mutual perceptions of the Indigenous and the imperial actors. They investigate the rhetoric of civilization and barbarism and its expression in military policies. Indigenous resistance, survival, and adaptation is a major theme. The essays demonstrate that power relations were endlessly adjusted, identities were framed and reframed, and new mutual knowledge was produced by all participants. Over time, cultures were transformed across the board, at political, social, religious, linguistic, ideological, and economic levels. The developments were complex, with numerous groups enmeshed in webs of aggression, opposition, cooperation, and integration. Readers will see how Indigenous and imperial identities evolved in Roman and American lands. Finally, the authors consider how American views of Roman activity influenced the development of American imperial expansion and accompanying Indigenous critiques. They show how Roman, imperial North American, and Indigenous experiences have contributed to American notions of race, religion, and citizenship, and given shape to problems of social inclusion and exclusion today.

British and American commanders first used modern special forces in support of conventional military operations during World War II. Since then, although special ops have featured prominently in popular culture and media coverage of wars, the academic study of irregular warfare has remained as elusive as the practitioners of special operations themselves. This book is the first comprehensive study of the development, application, and value of Anglo-American commando and special forces units during the Second World War. Special forces are intensively trained, specially selected military units performing unconventional and often high-risk missions. In this book, Andrew L. Hargreaves not only describes tactics and operations but also outlines the distinctions between commandos and special forces, traces their evolution during the war, explains how the Anglo-American alliance functioned in the creation and use of these units, looks at their command and control arrangements, evaluates their impact, and assesses their cost-effectiveness. The first real impetus for the creation of British specialist formations came in the desperate summer of 1940 when, having been pushed out of Europe following defeat in France and the Low Countries, Britain began to turn to irregular forces in an effort to wrest back the strategic initiative from the enemy. The development of special forces by the United States was also a direct consequence of defeat. After Pearl Harbor, Hargreaves shows, the Americans found themselves in much the same position as Britain had been in 1940: shocked, outnumbered, and conventionally defeated, they were unable to come to grips with the enemy on a large scale. By the end of the war, a variety of these units had overcome a multitude of evolutionary hurdles and made valuable contributions to practically every theater of operation. In describing how Britain and the United States worked independently and cooperatively to invent and put into practice a fundamentally new way of waging war, this book demonstrates the two nations' flexibility, adaptability, and ability to innovate during World War II.

For many Latin students, the second year of study marks an exciting turning point. Having learned the basics of grammar and vocabulary, they are finally ready to encounter "real" Latin authors, usually Caesar or Cicero, for the first time. Yet these same students often grow frustrated when they realize their grasp of Latin grammar is not as solid as they would wish. This student-friendly handbook offers intermediate learners a targeted review of the essentials of Latin grammar, enabling them to read assigned texts with greater facility. The fifteen lessons in Latin Redux focus on topics that many students do not learn thoroughly in the first year, such as gerunds and gerundives, or that are sometimes omitted for lack of time, such as subordinate clauses in indirect discourse. The lessons are presented in order of difficulty, but they can be used in any order and can all be completed within a single semester. After reviewing these lessons in grammar and syntax, students will be more confident when they encounter the same structures in their readings. As the first book of its kind to supplement the curriculum of intermediate students, Latin Redux fills an important niche in Latin instruction. Classroom tested by the author, the handbook complements any Latin prose or poetry readings an instructor might select. Adding to its appeal, each chapter includes a fun "Lingua Latina Ubique" (Latin Language Everywhere) section that highlights how much Latin we use every day. The volume is further enhanced by Latin-to-English and English-to-Latin glossaries and a grammatical appendix.

In 1857, the Meskwaki Nation ("Red Earth People") purchased an eighty-acre parcel of land along the Iowa River. With that modest plot secured as a place to rest and rebuild after centuries of devastation and dispossession, the Red Earth People began to reclaim their homeland--an effort that Native nations continue to this day in what has recently come to be called the #Landback movement. Red Earth Nation explores the long history of #Landback through the Meskwaki Nation's story, one of the oldest and clearest examples of direct-purchase Indigenous land reclamation in American history. Spanning Indigenous environmental and political history from the Red Earth People's creation to the twenty-first century, Red Earth Nation focuses on the Meskwaki Settlement: now comprising more than 8,000 acres, this is sovereign Meskwaki land, not a treaty-created reservation. Currently the largest employer in Tama County, Iowa, the Meskwaki Nation has long used its land ownership and economic clout to resist the forces of colonization and create opportunities for self-determination. But the Meskwaki story is not one of smooth or straightforward progress. Eric Zimmer describes the assaults on tribal sovereignty visited on the Meskwaki Nation by the local, state, and federal governments that surround it. In these instances, the Meskwaki Settlement provided political leverage and an anchor for community cohesion, as generations of Meskwaki deliberately and strategically--though not always successfully--used their collective land ownership to affirm tribal sovereignty and exercise self-determination. Revealing how the Red Earth People have negotiated shifting environmental, economic, and political circumstances to rebuild in the face of incredible pressures, Red Earth Nation shows that with their first, eighty-acre land purchase in the 1850s, Meskwaki leaders initiated a process that is still under way. Indeed, Native nations across the United States have taken up the #Landback cause, marshaling generations of resistance to reframe the history of Indigenous dispossession to explore stories of reclamation and tribal sovereignty.

A year after John Bradstreet's raid of 1758-the first and largest British-American riverine raid mounted during the Seven Years' War (known in North America as the French and Indian War)-Benjamin Franklin hailed it as one of the great "American" victories of the war. Bradstreet heartily agreed, and soon enough, his own official account was adopted by Francis Parkman and other early historians.In this first comprehensive analysis of Bradstreet's raid, Ian Macpherson McCulloch uses never-before-seen materials and a new interpretive approach to dispel many of the myths that have grown up around the operation. The result is a closely observed, deeply researched revisionist microhistory-the first unvarnished, balanced account of a critical moment in early American military history.Examined within the context of campaign planning and the friction among commanders in the war's first three years, the raid looks markedly different than Bradstreet's heroic portrayal. The operation was carried out principally by American colonial soldiers, and McCulloch lets many of the provincial participants give voice to their own experiences. He consults little-known French documents that give Bradstreet's opponents' side of the story, as well as supporting material such as orders of battle, meteorological data, and overviews of captured ships. McCulloch also examines the riverine operational capability that Bradstreet put in place, a new water-borne style of combat that the British-American army would soon successfully deploy in the campaigns of Niagara (1759) and Montreal (1760).McCulloch's history is the most detailed, thoroughgoing view of Bradstreet's raid ever produced.

The story of the United States Air Force stretches back to aerial operations prior to the First World War-well before the USAF became a separate service-and looks forward to a new era of air power in space. Fighting from Above presents a concise account of this expansive history, offering a new perspective on how the air forces of the United States created an independent way of warfare over time.From the earliest battles of the USAF's predecessor organizations to its modern incarnation, Brian D. Laslie identifies four distinct and observable ways of war that developed over four distinct epochs. Beginning with the development of early air power (1906-1941), he highlights the creation of roles and missions, with bombardment theory and practice ascendant. An era of strategic dominance (1942-1975) followed, in which the ideas of strategic bombardment ruled the United States Air Force; when such notions were unceremoniously proven false during the Vietnam-era conflicts, a period of tactical ascendancy (1975-2019) began. Finally, Laslie considers the current environment, where much of the story of the USAF remains unwritten, as we are still grappling with the challenges posed by an unmanned future with drones and realization of the promises of a final frontier.While detailing combat operations, Fighting from Above also pays close attention to technology, politics, rivalries, logistics, policy, organization, equipping, and training. Thorough, concise, and innovative in its approach, it is an authoritative, exceptionally readable history of the development of American air power.

Before their forced removal to Oklahoma in the 1830s, the Euchee people lived in Georgia and other southeastern territories. Today the Euchees are enrolled members of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma, but they possess their own separate language, culture, and traditions. This unique collection, written by Euchee citizen Gregory H. Bigler, combines traditional di'ile (Euchee tales), personal recollections, and contemporary stories to portray a way of life often hidden from view.Written in an engaging, down-to-earth style, the stories in this book immerse the reader in the everyday experiences of the Euchee community. With his gift for storytelling, Bigler welcomes readers into the lives and culture of the people whose stories he has heard or observed throughout his life and career as a lawyer and judge. Unforgettable characters appear or reappear in various settings, and these figures, whether animal or human, are bound to bring forth a chuckle or leave the reader wanting to learn more about their history. Some of the tales address serious legal injustices, while others poke gentle fun at lofty academic constructs. In the title story, for example, the mischievous character Shajwane (Rabbit), resolves to decolonize the forest, to strip away its "false narrative," by literally removing all new growth from the trees.These stories bring to life Euchee traditions that include family ties, the stomp dance, and communal cooking and feasting. Woven throughout is the sacred element of spirit. As Bigler explains in his introduction, the "spiritual" for Euchees does not signify a Western quest for peace or centeredness but instead a world filled with animate spirits that interact with all of us-as we see them, feel them, or seek them out.The Euchee people are unknown to most Americans. They inhabit a small area of northeastern Oklahoma and have yet to receive federal recognition. Yet even in their modern-day lives-as these stories capture so beautifully-the Euchee people remain fiercely determined to show "they are still here."

Academia is not, by and large, a kind place. Individualism and competition are what count. But without kindness at its core, Catherine Denial suggests, higher education fails students and instructors--and its mission--in critical ways. Part manifesto, part teaching memoir, part how-to guide, A Pedagogy of Kindness urges higher education to get aggressive about instituting kindness, which Denial distinguishes from niceness. Having suffered beneath the weight of just "getting along," instructors need to shift every part of what they do to prioritizing care and compassion--for students as well as for themselves. A Pedagogy of Kindness articulates a fresh vision for teaching, one that focuses on ensuring justice, believing people, and believing in people. Offering evidence-based insights and drawing from her own rich experiences as a professor, Denial offers practical tips for reshaping syllabi, assessing student performance, and creating trust and belonging in the classroom. Her suggestions for concrete, scalable actions outline nothing less than a transformational discipline--one in which, together, we create bright new spaces, rooted in compassion, in which all engaged in teaching and learning might thrive.

When war broke out between Great Britain and the United States in 1812, Sir George Prevost, captain general and governor in chief of British North America, was responsible for defending a group of North American colonies that stretched as far as the distance from Paris to Moscow. He also commanded one of the largest British overseas forces during the Napoleonic Wars. Defender of Canada, the first book-length examination of Prevost's career, offers a reinterpretation of the general's military leadership in the War of 1812. Historian Tanya Grodzinski shows that Prevost deserves far greater credit for the successful defense of Canada than he has heretofore received.Earlier accounts portrayed Prevost as overly cautious and attributed the preservation of Canada to other officers, but Grodzinski challenges these assumptions and restores the general to his rightful place as British North America's key military figure during the War of 1812. Grodzinski shows that Prevost's strategic insight enabled him to enact a practicable defense despite scarce resources and to ably integrate naval power into his defensive plans.Prevost's range of responsibilities in British North America were daunting. They included overseeing joint endeavors with Indian allies, managing logistical matters, monitoring naval construction and personnel needs, supervising colonial governments, and commanding the defense of Canada. Tasked with protecting an extensive and complex territory, Prevost employed a mix of soldiers, sailors, locally raised forces, and indigenous people in taking advantage of the American military's weaknesses to defeat most of its plans.Following his recall to Britain in 1815 after the defeat at the Battle of Plattsburgh, Prevost would have been court-martialed had he not died unexpectedly. In carefully examining the charges leveled against Prevost, Grodzinski shows the general to have preserved the integrity of Canada, allowing diplomats to ensure its continued existence.

In two decades of traveling throughout Mexico, Central America, and Europe, French priest Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg (1814-1874) amassed hundreds of indigenous manuscripts and printed books, including grammars and vocabularies that brought to light languages and cultures little known at the time. Although his efforts yielded many of the foundational texts of Mesoamerican studies-the pre-Columbian Codex Troana, the only known copies of the Popol Vuh and the indigenous dance drama Rabinal-Achi, and Diego De Landa's Relación de la cosas de Yucatán-Brasseur earned disdain among scholars for his theories linking Maya writings to the mythical continent of Atlantis. In The Manuscript Hunter, translator Katia Sainson reasserts his standing as the founder of modern Maya studies, presenting three of his travel writings in English for the first time.While civil wars raged throughout Mexico and Central America and foreign interests sought access to the region's rich resources, Brasseur focused on uncovering Mesoamerica's mysterious past by examining its ancient manuscripts and living oral traditions. His "Notes from a Voyage in Central America," "From Guatemala City to Rabinal," and Voyage across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec document his travels in search of these texts and traditions. Brasseur's writings weave vivid geographical descriptions of Central America and Mexico during the mid-1800s with keen social and political analysis, all steeped in vast knowledge of the region's history and interest in its indigenous cultures.Coupled with Sainson's thoughtful introduction and annotations, these captivating, accessible accounts reveal Brasseur de Bourbourg's true accomplishments and offer an unrivaled view of the birth of Mesoamerican studies in the nineteenth century. Brasseur's writings not only depict Central America and Mexico through the eyes of a European traveler at a key moment, but also illuminate the remarkable efforts of one man to understand and preserve Mesoamerica's cultural traditions for all time.

The predecessor of today's California bubbly was Eclipse Champagne, the first commercially successful California sparkling wine, produced by Arpad Haraszthy. In A Toast to Eclipse, Brian McGinty offers a definitive history of the wine, exploring California's winemaking past and two of the people who put the state's varietal wines on the map.

As the Klondike gold rush peaked in spring 1898, adventurers and gamblers rubbed shoulders with town-builders and gold-panners in Skagway, Alaska. The flow of riches lured confidence men, too-among them Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith (1860-98), who with an entourage of "bunco-men" conned and robbed the stampeders. Soapy, though, a common enough criminal, would go down in legend as the Robin Hood of Alaska, the "uncrowned king of Skagway," remembered for his charm and generosity, even for calming a lynch mob. When the Fourth of July was celebrated in '98, he supposedly led the parade. Then, a few days later, he was dead, killed in a shootout over a card game.With Smith's death, Skagway rid itself of crime forever. Or at least, so the story goes. Journalists immediately cast him as a martyr whose death redeemed a violent town. In fact, he was just a petty criminal and card shark, as Catherine Holder Spude proves definitively in "That Fiend in Hell": Soapy Smith in Legend, a tour de force of historical debunking that documents Smith's elevation to western hero. In sorting out the facts about this man and his death from fiction, Spude concludes that the actual Soapy was not the legendary "boss of Skagway," nor was he killed by Frank Reid, as early historians supposed. She shows that even eyewitnesses who knew the truth later changed their stories to fit the myth.But why? Tracking down some hundred retellings of the Soapy Smith story, Spude traces the efforts of Skagway's boosters to reinforce a morality tale at the expense of a complex story of town-building and government formation. The idea that Smith's death had made a lawless town safe served Skagway's economic interests. Spude's engaging deconstruction of Soapy's story models deep research and skepticism crucial to understanding the history of the American frontier.

More than any other pioneer of the genre, Owen Wister turned the Western into a form of social and political critique. In this biographical-literary account of Wister's life and writings, Gary Scharnhorst shows how the West shaped Wister's career and ideas, even as he lived and worked in the East.

In this first comprehensive reading of Juvenal's satires in more than fifty years, David H. J. Larmour deftly revises and sharpens our understanding of the second-century Roman writer who stands as the archetype for all later practitioners of the satirist's art.The enduring attraction of Juvenal's satires is twofold: they not only introduce the character of the "angry satirist" but also offer vivid descriptions of everyday life in Rome at the height of the Empire. In Larmour's interpretation, these two elements are inextricably linked. The Arena of Satire presents the satirist as flaneur traversing the streets of Rome in search of its authentic core-those distinctly Roman virtues that have disappeared amid the corruption of the age. What the vengeful, punishing satirist does to his victims, as Larmour shows, echoes what the Roman state did to outcasts and criminals in the arena of the Colosseum.The fact that the arena was the most prominent building in the city and is mentioned frequently by Juvenal makes it an ideal lens through which to examine the spectacular and punishing characteristics of Roman satire. And the fact that Juvenal undertakes his search for the uncorrupted, authentic Rome within the very buildings and landmarks that make up the actual, corrupt Rome of his day gives his sixteen satires their uniquely paradoxical and contradictory nature. Larmour's exploration of "the arena of satire" guides us through Juvenal's search for the true Rome, winding from one poem to the next. He combines close readings of passages from individual satires with discussions of Juvenal's representation of Roman space and topography, the nature of the "arena" experience, and the network of connections among the satirist, the gladiator, and the editor-or producer-of Colosseum entertainments. The Arena of Satire also offers a new definition of "Juvenalian satire" as a particular form arising from the intersection of the body and the urban landscape-a form whose defining features survive in the works of several later satirists, from Jonathan Swift and Evelyn Waugh to contemporary writers such as Russian novelist Victor Pelevin and Irish dramatist Martin McDonagh.

Loren Miller: Civil Rights Attorney and Journalist recovers this remarkable figure from the shadows of history and for the first time fully reveals his life for what it was: an extraordinary American story and a critical chapter in the annals of racial justice.

The Spanish invasion of Mexico in 1519, which led to the end of the Aztec Empire, was one of the most influential events in the history of the modern Atlantic world. But equally consequential, as this volume makes clear, were the ways the Conquest was portrayed.In essays spanning five centuries and three continents, The Conquest of Mexico: 500 Years of Reinventions explores how politicians, writers, artists, activists, and others have strategically reimagined the Conquest to influence and manipulate perceptions within a wide variety of controversies and debates, including those touching on indigeneity, nationalism, imperialism, modernity, and multiculturalism. Writing from a range of perspectives and disciplines, the authors demonstrate that the Conquest of Mexico, whose significance has ever been marked by fundamental ambiguity, has consistently influenced how people across the modern Atlantic world conceptualize themselves and their societies.After considering the looming, ubiquitous role of the Conquest in Mexican thought and discourse since the sixteenth century, the contributors go farther afield to examine the symbolic relevance of the Conquest in contexts as diverse as Tudor England, Bourbon France, postimperial Spain, modern Latin America, and even contemporary Hollywood. Highlighting the extent to which the Spanish-Aztec conflict inspired historical reimaginings, these essays reveal how the Conquest became such an iconic event-and a perennial medium by which both Europe and the Americas have, for centuries, endeavored to understand themselves as well as their relationship to others.A valuable contribution to ongoing efforts to demythologize and properly memorialize the Spanish-Aztec War of 1519-21, this volume also aptly illustrates how we make history of the past and how that history-making shapes our present-and possibly our future.