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Analyzes Mississippian daily life at Cahokia’s environs during wartime

In Life in a Mississippian Warscape: Common Field, Cahokia, and the Effects of Warfare Meghan E. Buchanan posits that to understand the big histories of warfare, political fragmentation, and resilience in the past archaeologists must also analyze and interpret the microscale actions of the past. These are the daily activities of people before, during, and after historical events. Within warscapes, battles take place in peoples’ front yards, family members die, and the impacts of violence in near and distant places are experienced on a daily basis. This book explores the microscale of daily lives of people living at Common Field, a large, palisaded mound center, during the period of Cahokia’s abandonment and the spread of violence and warfare throughout the Southeast.

Linking together ethnographic, historic, and archaeological sources, Buchanan discusses the evidence that the people of Common Field engaged in novel and hybrid practices in these dangerous times. At the microscale, they adopted new ceramic tempering techniques, produced large numbers of serving vessels decorated with warfare-related imagery, adapted their food practices, and erected a substantial palisade with specially prepared deposits. The overall picture that emerges at Common Field is of a people who engaged in risk-averse practices that minimized their exposure to outside of the palisade and attempted to seek intercession from otherworldly realms through public ceremonies involving warfare-related iconography.
 

While working on his first book, Bob Korkuc became intimately familiar with the 381st Bombardment Group of the Mighty Eighth Air Force and met the group’s chaplain, James Good Brown. Brown kept a diary during his time with the bomb group (1943 to 1945) in which he chronicled the daily experiences of the men. 

Years after the war, Brown self-published his diary, which today is hard to find. Through his friendship with Brown, Korkuc gained access to and chose to edit the original docu - ment so that more readers might appreciate this insightful wartime eyewitness account. 

Serving in his early forties alongside men twenty years his junior—whom he called the “Mighty Men of the 381st”—Brown took part in morning briefings, shared meals with crews, and anxiously awaited their return from dangerous daylight bombing missions. Flying as a noncombatant, an unnecessary eleventh crewmember, Brown describes his own observations of a Flying Fortress combat mission over Germany. Writing with extraordinary candor, Brown documents the inner workings of a bomb group that flew 297 combat missions over Europe, providing vivid character assessments of his fellow airmen and capturing both their victories and devastating losses. 

In addition to judiciously editing Brown’s original diary for readability, Korkuc created a unique appendix, which reveals the fate of every airman who served with Brown. The immediacy of Brown’s narration combined with Korkuc’s meticulous editing make this a promising new resource for scholars and general readers alike.
 
 

This book of thirteen conversations introduces us to the life of an exceptional person—theatre critic, Germanist, and long-time chair of the Open Lithuania Fund board—Irena Veisaitė. The dialogue between Lithuanian historian Aurimas Švedas and a woman who reflects deeply on her experiences reveals both one individual’s historically dramatic life and the fate of Europe and Lithuania in the twentieth century.

Through the complementary lenses of history and memory, we confront with Veisaitė the horrific events of the Holocaust, which brought about the end of the Lithuanian Jewish world. We also meet an array of world-class cultural figures, see fragments of legendary theatre performances, and hear meaningful words that were spoken or heard decades ago.

This book’s interlocutors do not so much seek to answer the question “What was it like?” but instead repeatedly ask each other: “What, how, and why do we remember? What is the meaning of our experiences? How can history help us to live in the present and create the future? How do we learn to understand and forgive?”

A series of Veisaitė’s texts, statements, and letters, presented at the end of the book suggest further ways of answering these questions.

Like Friends, Like Foes offers a comprehensive analysis of how Nevada residents responded and reacted to the “Japanese Question” during World War II. Both before and during the war, the experience of Japanese American residents of Nevada varied widely. Once the war started, Japanese immigrants experienced an unusual case of mass internment from the mining towns of Ruth and McGill, Nevada, while Japanese American railroad workers and their families, scattered across the state, faced sudden layoffs and evictions. At the same time, most of the Japanese Americans living in Nevada fared much better than their counterparts who resided in the surrounding states.

Andrew Russell’s study examines how variations in local history and local circumstances generated starkly different perspectives and responses to the supposed “Japanese problems” confronting Nevada’s small communities, the state, and the larger region. While Russell’s interpretive history spotlights some highly unusual developments, it nevertheless offers fresh evidence of how individuals or small groups can play significant roles in combating the abuse of civil rights during times of fear and uncertainty.

France’s century-long wars of conquest in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia remain both understudied and symbolic of European imperialism. Launched to provide political legitimacy for the House of Bourbon during unstable times, these wars of empire ironically ended by generating nationalist sentiments that undermined French imperial aspirations, although France was successful on the battlefield after tremendous effort. The controversy both at the time and today about France’s North African ambitions has overshadowed the significant history of this conflict. Fought across some of the world’s most unforgiving, yet spectacular, terrain, these wars featured innovative military campaigns, epic battles, inspiring resistance leaders, and countless episodes of remarkable courage. Profoundly relevant, the French North African wars had a major global impact, influencing the development of military organization, tactics, and technology in the American Civil War, both world wars, and even modern Middle Eastern conflicts. Yet it is the human element that is most compelling. Based on extensive primary source research, Lions of the Atlas: France’s Wars for Empire and Resistance in North Africa, 1827–1934 is the first-ever comprehensive study, in any language, of these pivotal wars and those who fought them. 

Beginning with the French naval blockade and amphibious invasion of Algeria in 1827–1830, the book tells the story of the large-scale campaigns and huge set-piece battles that ensued over the following several decades, across the highest peaks of the Atlas Mountains, in hills and valleys, along and over rivers, through scorching deserts, and even in fierce urban combat in town and city streets. Engagements include two unforgettable campaigns to capture the mountain fortress at Constantine, bold and devastating forays by Algerian cavalrymen and mountain warriors, and the pivotal 1844 Battle of Isly. The story continues with the French invasion of Tunisia in 1881, and then the thirty-year French campaign for the subjugation of Morocco, concluding with the Rif War of the 1920s that shocked the world. The narrative features charismatic resistance leaders such as Algeria’s Emir Abd-el-Kader, legendary military units such as the colorful Zouaves and the Foreign Legion, and changes in military technology, including the use of aircraft and armored vehicles. A major contribution to our understanding of one of the world’s most storied regions, Lions of the Atlas provides gripping and insightful reading while presenting the complex history of war and resistance in North Africa.

For over half a century, the Vietnamese people have endured the harmful legacies of Agent Orange, the toxic herbicide used by the American military as a type of chemical warfare. While scientists and politicians continue to debate how to best address its human and environmental consequences, the nearly three million Vietnamese whose lives have been shaped by its lingering effects have been largely left out of the conversation.

To understand how Agent Orange has impacted the lives and livelihoods of everyday Vietnamese people, Diane Niblack Fox interviewed families and individuals living with its aftereffects across the northern, central, and southern regions of the country. In powerfully written prose, Fox shares the personal accounts of villagers, as they describe caring for loved ones with chronic illnesses and disabilities and their attempts to secure medical and financial assistance. Living with Agent Orange also chronicles the moving stories of rebuilt lives, of family and community support, and of the overriding power of the human spirit.