This collection arose out of a 2019 conference to commemorate the completion of the fourteen- volume Correspondence of James K. Polk. Its scholarship—which pays tribute to the Polk Project itself, as well as to the controversial nature of the Polk legacy—will result in a significant reinterpretation of the eleventh US president.
Contributors include John F. Polk, who examines the ways history has mischaracterized almost the entire Polk family tree, and Kelly Houston Jones, who investigates the family’s investments in slave-based agriculture. The fascinating life of Elias Polk, a man enslaved by the president, is compellingly related by Zacharie W. Kinslow. Asaf Almog analyzes the persistence of labels: Polk and fellow Democrats labeled their Whig opponents “Federalists,” he argues, with both rhetorical and substantive aims. Michael Gunther analyzes Polk’s authorization of the Smithsonian Institution and the Department of the Interior, seemingly at odds with his devotion to small government.
Taken together, the twelve essays unveil a more complex James K. Polk than the narrowly focused Jackson protégé and proponent of Manifest Destiny we often hear about. He was politically partisan but inspired by history and grounded in principle. His family’s long reliance on nonwhite Americans’ losses of freedom and land informed his policies on slavery and Indian removal, and the nature of the legislation at hand determined when he promoted a larger or a smaller federal government. James K. Polk and His Timehelps us to unde
Japan's Economy in War and Reconstruction was first published in 1949. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.
Dr. Cohen's substantial monograph is a carefully documented account of Japan's economic development from 1937 to 1949. It describes with much statistical evidence a remarkable experiment in planned industrial expansion prior to 1941, then continues with a survey of the war years, showing both the successes and failures of the planning, controlling, financing, and developing of Japan's war industries.
The last part of the book deals with the post-war problems of Japan from the war's end to the latter part of 1948—three years of occupation by the Allied Powers. Dr. Cohen discusses the three key economic factors: the basic reforms, the rapidly mounting inflation, and the slowly increasing, but still low level of production.
Dr. Cohen's first chapter is devoted to the careful planning of the years before the war. The next chapters discuss Japan's efforts to cope with the problems of munitions, food supply, and labor as the Allied war effort gradually wore her down. There are detailed studies of separate industries, shipping, and agriculture, and a discussion of the parts played respectively by air, sea, and land operations in the destruction of Japan's ability to wage successful war.
One of the main theses of these chapters is that the increasingly enveloping blockade of Japan shut off necessary industrial raw materials, and so brought Japanese war production to a virtual standstill before the main weight of the strategic air attack was delivered, and so made it impossible for Japan to continue the war.
The author's grim picture of inter-service quarrels and overlapping and inconsistent controls demonstrates that the Japanese army, navy, and civil service, in spite of their reputation for exact and strict organization, in practice failed to make good use of their unlimited powers.
Unlike the other cultural groups covered in the People of Wisconsin series, the Jews who have made their home in Wisconsin are united not by a single country of origin, but by a shared history and set of religious beliefs. This diverse group found their way to America’s heartland over several centuries from Germany, Russia, and beyond, some fleeing violence and persecution, others searching for new opportunities, but all making important contributions to the fabric of this state’s history. Through detailed historical information and personal accounts, Sheila Terman Cohen brings to life the stories of their various trials and triumphs. Jews in Wisconsin details their battles against anti-Semitism, their efforts to participate in the communities they joined, and their successes at holding onto their own cultural identities.
In addition to excerpts of Cohen’s many interviews with Wisconsin Jews, Jews in Wisconsin also features the compelling journals of German immigrant Louis Heller, a tradesman who established himself in Milwaukee, and Russian immigrant Azriel Kanter, who details the perilous journey his family embarked on to escape anti-Semitism in his home country and make a new life in Wisconsin.
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