Results by title

63 books match the query 'Causes' and 4 start with f

cover of Fanatics and Fire-eaters: Newspapers and the Coming of the Civil War

Fanatics and Fire-eaters

Newspapers and the Coming of the Civil War

Lorman A. Ratner and Dwight L. Teeter Jr.

University of Illinois Press, 2003

In the troubled years leading up to the Civil War, newspapers in the North and South presented the arguments for and against slavery, debated the right to secede, and in general denounced opposing viewpoints with imagination and vigor. At the same time, new technologies like railroads and the telegraph lent the debates an immediacy that both enflamed emotions and brought the slavery issue into every home. 

Lorman A. Ratner and Dwight L. Teeter Jr. look at the power of America's fast-growing media to influence perception and the course of events prior to the Civil War. Drawing on newspaper accounts from across the United States, the authors look at how the media covered—and the public reacted to—major events like the Dred Scott decision, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and the election of 1860. They find not only North-South disputes about the institution of slavery but differing visions of the republic itself—and which region was the true heir to the legacy of the American Revolution.

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cover of Framing the Problem: Causes and Consequences of a Shrinking Great Salt Lake

Framing the Problem

Causes and Consequences of a Shrinking Great Salt Lake

Kevin D. Perry

University of Utah Press, 2024

The Great Salt Lake ecosystem is on the verge of collapse due to unsustainably large water diversions, the ongoing megadrought, and climate change. Plummeting lake levels will result in a cascade of tremendous economic, ecological, and human health problems if no action is taken. One consequence of particular concern to the public is the potential for exposure to arsenic-laden dust emanating from the exposed portions of the Great Salt Lake lakebed. Framing the Problem explores how climate change has affected the lake, the consequences of low lake levels, and potential strategies for saving this ecological oasis.
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cover of From Liberation to Conquest: The Visual and Popular Cultures of the Spanish-American War of 1898

From Liberation to Conquest

The Visual and Popular Cultures of the Spanish-American War of 1898

Bonnie M. Miller

University of Massachusetts Press, 2011

The American people overwhelmingly supported the nation's entry into the Spanish-American War of 1898, which led to U.S. imperial expansion into the Caribbean and Pacific. In this book, Bonnie M. Miller explores the basis of that support, showing how the nation's leading media makers—editorialists, cartoonists, filmmakers, photographers, and stage performers—captured the public's interest in the Cuban crisis with heart-rending depictions of Cuban civilians, particularly women, brutalized by bloodthirsty Spanish pirates.

Although media campaigns initially advocated for the United States to step in to rescue Cuba from the horrors of colonial oppression, the war ended just months later with the U.S. acquisition of Spain's remaining empire, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. President William McKinley heeded the call for war, with the American people behind him, and then proceeded to use the conflict to further his foreign policy agenda of expanding U.S. interests in the Caribbean and Far East.

Miller examines the shifting media portrayals of U.S. actions for the duration of the conflict, from liberation to conquest. She shows how the media capitalized on the public's thirst for drama, action, and spectacle and adapted to emerging imperial possibilities. Growing resistance to American imperialism by the war's end unraveled the consensus in support of U.S policy abroad and produced a rich debate that found expression in American visual and popular culture.
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cover of From War to Genocide: Criminal Politics in Rwanda, 1990–1994

From War to Genocide

Criminal Politics in Rwanda, 1990–1994

André Guichaoua, Translated by Don E. Webster, Foreword by Scott Straus

University of Wisconsin Press, 2017

In April 1994 Rwanda exploded in violence, with political, social, and economic divisions most visible along ethnic lines of the Hutu and Tutsi factions. The ensuing killings resulted in the deaths of as much as 20 percent of Rwanda's population. André Guichaoua, who was present as the genocide began, unfolds a complex story with multiple actors, including three major political parties that each encompassed a spectrum of positions, all reacting to and influencing a rapidly evolving situation. Economic polarities, famine-fueled privation, clientelism, corruption, north-south rivalries, and events in the neighboring nations of Burundi and Uganda all deepened ethnic tensions, allowing extremists to prevail over moderates.

Guichaoua draws on years of meticulous research to describe and analyze this history. He emphasizes that the same virulent controversies that fueled the conflict have often influenced judicial, political, and diplomatic responses to it, reproducing the partisan cleavages between the former belligerents and implicating state actors, international institutions, academics, and the media. Guichaoua insists upon the imperative of absolute intellectual independence in pursuing the truth about some of the gravest human rights violations of the twentieth century.
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