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"Contested Valor is an examination of the use and status of black Marines in service during the Cold War era. It is about how these men experienced contested military integration, as well as multiple forms of institutional and social opposition, which called their humanity, manhood, and rights to full citizenship into question. Efforts to undermine their service compromised their right to be counted among the elite and sidelined their story to the fringes of Marine Corps and American history. It also explores the creation of these organizational policies designed to minimize their footprint as U.S. Marines until the social experiment of military integration faded and illustrates the discriminatory practices that further delegitimized their wartime reputation. Cameron McCoy describes the factors and pressures leading to the racial turbulence that surfaced in the Marine Corps from the end of World War II through Vietnam, and the measures taken by civilian and Marine officials to maintain and restore organizational integrity based on a foundation of white supremacy. McCoy examines the psychological effects of institutionalized racism on African American Marines during the Vietnam era and the emergence of a new generation of blacks unwilling to submit to the traditions of a Jim Crow Marine Corps. By exploring the realities American society created about black Marines, this work calls attention to the diverse ways in which these men coped within a strict prejudiced organization and found greater purpose as U.S. Marines despite an embattled image"--

The question Americans asked in 1844 was, "Who the hell is James K. Polk?"Polk, of course, was not unknown, but was a highly unlikely presidential candidate given the availability of better-known options. Among the Democrats, this included Martin Van Buren, John C. Calhoun, and James Buchanan. Among the Whigs, Henry Clay was the clear frontrunner. Complicating the election were three other candidates: President John Tyler, a man without a party; Joseph Smith, the self-described prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the first presidential candidate to be assassinated; and James G. Birney, head of the antislavery Liberty ticket. On top of this remarkable cast of characters, the stakes of the election were high as the United States was undergoing a tumultuous political transition.James K. Polk's ascension to the White House over more notable politicians was a pivotal moment in propelling the United States towards civil war, and the 1844 election expanded the vigorous campaigning that had been growing since 1824. In Who is James K. Polk?, Mark R. Cheathem examines the transition from traditional political issues, such as banking and tariffs, to newer ones, like immigration and slavery. The book also captures the Whig and Democratic parties at a mature stage of competition and provides detailed descriptions of campaign tactics used by the candidates, including rallies, music, and political cartoons.Cheathem has written the definitive account of this important election in this volume for the esteemed American Presidential Elections series.

"Like Men of War, originally published in 1998 by Little, Brown, was a groundbreaking early study of Black troops in the Civil War that It is still considered a major contribution to the literature on the USCT. This is a chronological operational history. Trudeau covers every major engagement in which the United States Colored Troops (USCT) participated, as well as some minor ones. He quotes generously from primary documents, including Black soldiers' letters. John David Smith said of the first edition, "Like Men of War is important and relevant because it remains the only extant narrative history of Black troops in the Union Army aimed at both general readers and scholars and students. William A. Dobak's Freedom by the Sword (2011), although an excellent work, is a finely-tuned tactical and strategic study, but one that omits the human element and fine writing that Trudeau's book exudes. It serves more as a tactical manual, not a monograph. Also, Dobak's logistical and institutional study is "dry as dust" whereas Trudeau's book breathes life into the men and battles of the USCT." What's new in the second edition: Updated language, e.g., "owner" to "enslaver"; Text changes throughout - words, sentences, paragraphs; New photographs (we're only using five from the first edition), and placed throughout rather than gathered together; New chapters/sections: see TOC"--

"Serpents of War is an abridged edition of a nearly 200,000-word World War I memoir by Pennsylvanian Major Harry Dravo Parkin: Memoirs of World War I, being an account of the experiences of an American Officer wounded and captured by the Germans. The original memoir resides in Gettysburg College's Musselman Library. Offering the perspective of a mid-level officer responsible for the lives and welfare of over a thousand men, Parkin conveys the stress of command at a time when one innocent blunder could cost an officer his combat assignment, brings the inferno of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive to life in terrifying, gory detail, and recounts an experience undergone by very few American soldiers in 1918-that of being taken prisoner (while wounded no less) by the Imperial German Army. This is a book by a brave soldier, a recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism on the battlefield, who was also a gifted writer. Parkin's narrative seldom strains for effect. Its prose is unassuming and workmanlike. Nevertheless, readers of Serpents of War will likely agree that Parkin possessed of a strong sense of setting, a knack for capturing the chaos and strange exhilaration of battle, and a sharp eye for the interpersonal, social dynamics of military life-the personality clashes and simmering feuds, as well as the moments of comradeship and accord. There is no other American World War I memoir quite like it"--

In contemporary constitutional politics, Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment--which includes the citizenship, privileges and immunities, due process, and equal protection clauses--is the star of the show. But this was not the focus for the Republican members of the Thirty-Ninth Congress. Their interest was instead in Sections 2, 3, and 4. Today we tend to think the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to protect persons of color. But the Republicans engaged in Reconstruction saw its purpose as preventing "rebel rule" by punishing treason and rewarding loyalty, particularly the loyalty of white men who remained faithful to the Union during the Civil War.In this first of three planned volumes for the University Press of Kansas's Constitutional Thinking series, Mark A. Graber aims to restore to contemporary memory the Fourteenth Amendment drafted by those Republican and Unionist members of Congress who supported congressional reconstruction.In Punish Treason, Reward Loyalty, Graber breaks new ground researching Reconstruction, the Fourteenth Amendment, and constitutionalism by highlighting the importance of Sections 2, 3, and 4 to the representatives in the Thirty-Ninth Congress and their relative indifference to Section 1. His work underscores the importance and impact that legislative primacy and partisan supremacy had to Republican constitutional thinking about constitutional authority immediately after the Civil War.Centered on Reconstruction and constitutional reform, Graber shows anew the Republican effort to prevent rebel rule by empowering and protecting loyalty.

"From the first shot fired by his grandfather on a jungle trail in 1903 to the day his father captured plans for the Chinese invasion of South Korea, William Crawford Woods's family has found its way into several American wars. Drawing on letters, journals, and other artifacts and documents, Woods has retrieved their stories-accounts of his grandfather, Louis Crawford, who served in the Philippine War and in World War I; of the author's uncle, who rose from West Point cadet to staff command in the 11th Airborne and died in action in the World War II battle for Manila; and of the author's own father, who transformed himself from a sedentary lawyer into a soldier and a spy. To lighten the load, Woods occasionally calls on memories of his own army service, which he calls "brief, bloodless, and largely comic." The book is nonfiction fortified by dramatic scenes in which the author, drawing on his skills as a novelist, offers more than battlefield stories. He explores the wider impact of war, as we learn of his grandfather's struggles with his wife's patrician parents; his uncle's involvement with Cy Caldwell, a superstar aviator of the 1930s; and his father's swift ascent from civilian to counterspy"--

"While its national parks are widely viewed as "America's best idea," and are both popular and noncontroversial in the United States, the establishment and history of almost every national park has been characterized by conflict over competing claims to land, history, knowledge, and economic interests. American presidents stake their claims to environmentalism, their assertions of a singular national history, and their definitions of a unified national identity on the parks, and often do so inside the parks themselves. Like any major area of public policy, however, the fissures present in debates over the national parks also represent important fracture lines in the public understanding of the meaning of "America" and of individual claims to citizenship. The park system, in other words, does a lot of political work for both presidents and the mass public, even though much of that work goes largely unnoticed. This book explores that political work, focusing on national origins and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples, monuments to the national past, heritage and the assertion of a national narrative, environmentalism and natural resources, and the exploitation of the national landscape for economic gain"--

When Abraham Lincoln was sworn into office, seven slave states had preemptively seceded rather than recognize the legitimacy of his election. In his first inaugural address on March 4, 1861, Lincoln replied to the secessionists and set forth a principled defense of majority rule as "the only true sovereign of a free people." His immediate purpose was to argue against the legitimacy of a powerful minority forcibly partitioning the United States because it was dissatisfied with the results of a free, constitutionally conducted election. His wider purpose was to make the case that a deliberate, constitutionally checked majority, though by no means infallible, was the appropriate ultimate authority not only on routine political questions but even on the kind of difficult, deeply divisive questions--like the future of slavery--that could otherwise trigger violent contests.Sovereign of a Free People examines Lincoln's defense of majority rule, his understanding of its capabilities and limitations, and his hope that slavery could be peacefully and gradually extinguished through the action of a committed national majority. James Read argues that Lincoln offered an innovative account of the interplay between majorities and minorities in the context of crosscutting issues and shifting public opinion. This story is particularly timely today as a new minority of dissatisfied voters has threatened and enacted violence in response to a valid election.Read offers the first book focused on Lincoln's understanding of majority rule. He also highlights the similarities and differences between the threats to American democracy in Lincoln's time and in our own. Sovereign of a Free People challenges common assumptions about what caused the Civil War, takes seriously the alternative path of a peaceful, democratic abolition of slavery in the United States, and offers a fresh treatment of Lincoln and race.