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Copyright of Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación is the property of Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseno y Comunicacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses two recent additions to Civil War scholarship, Fay Yarbrough's "Choctaw Confederates" and William Kiser's "Illusions of Empire," which explore the involvement of Indigenous nations and Mexico in the American Civil War. Yarbrough's book focuses on the Choctaw Nation's support for the Confederacy, highlighting the role of slavery and masculinity in their decision. Kiser's work delves into the impact of the Civil War on the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, revealing the failed imperial ambitions of various powers in the region. Both books challenge traditional narratives of the Civil War and emphasize the interconnectedness of different conflicts during that era. [Extracted from the article]

An important dimension of the newly independent Finland national narrative was constructed with the deeper historical knowledge of the civil-war monuments erected after independence in 1917. Finnish historical memory struggled to accommodate its horrific 1918 civil war in the new national heritage. The state rejected public monuments to the civil war's vanquished "Reds"––the lost, socialist side of the war––but survivors, allies, and families of Reds fabricated a memorial landscape at the many mass graves, execution sites, and prison camps scattered throughout the country. This article examines the ways the Reds negotiated state historical narratives through the establishment of a monumental landscape that was forced to be outside urban spaces and created dissonances and counter-memories of the civil war and a measure of reconciliation between former combatants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines Colombian author Gloria Susana Esquivel’s novel Animales del fin del mundo (2017). Narrated in first-person in the past tense, the novel follows seven-year-old Inés as she navigates an austere home life while also attempting to understand the urban violence that punctuates her affluent neighborhood amidst Colombia’s decades-long internal armed conflict. Caught in familial strife, yet unable to escape her home, Inés must keep to herself, often inventing imaginary friends and games to play in the absence of others. This study analyzes her invention of alter egos serving during child’s play as vehicles of self-discovery allowing her to play, converse, and find herself both literally and figuratively. Her relationship with child’s play, however, is complicated when Inés meets María, the housekeeper’s granddaughter. Though Inés initially idolizes María, admiration slowly turns to jealousy and rivalry, with their child’s play feeding Inés’s exploration of prejudice, greed, and pride. This study thus explores how Inés comes into her own voice as she begins to articulate expressions of class struggle and socioeconomic disparity between her and María through animal symbology, allowing Esquivel to push the boundaries of conventional notions of childhood innocence and female docility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the end of Punica 14, M. Claudius Marcellus transforms from a general famous for his military valor into a founder renowned for his clemency. This paper interprets his transformation in relation to the threat of civil war, which lurks throughout the Sicilian campaign. Earning glory through his commitment to external conquest and internal unity, Marcellus offers a resonant exemplum for a political community beset by fears of provincial unrest. When Silius invites his fellow governors to learn the lessons of the epyllion, he reveals his own awareness that the stability of the empire depends upon the conduct of those who conquer in its name. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how Francisco de Aguirre used the Copiapó Valley encomienda to negotiate political power during the transition from conquest to colonial rule in northern Chile. Simultaneously, we analyze the circumstances of how a native society was incorporated into the Spanish Empire after a decade of fighting and resistance on the fringes of the empire. The strategic use of the fear of native rebellions to close the road from Peru to Chile gave Aguirre enough power to negotiate an important political position, which in the future would clash with the colonial authorities. Copiapó Valley’s peripheral location in the southernmost Atacama Desert constituted a political gray zone for the colonial administration. This space contributed to consolidating power for Aguirre and enabled locals some negotiation power within the possibilities afforded by the colonial system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do insurgents resort to kidnapping in civil war? What explains variation in the selection and intensity of the tactic over time and space? Despite an increase in the use of kidnapping over time, existing research has yet to develop an explanation that explains spatiotemporal variation and extends beyond financial motivations. I argue the decision to kidnap hostages is shaped by insurgents' behavioral interactions in the conflict environment. It occurs under two conditions: to generate support and reinstate bargaining capacity when organizations suffer military losses on the battlefield and to enforce loyalties and display strength when organizations face violent competition from other non-state actors. The observable implications of the theory are tested at the macro- and micro levels. At the macro-level, I conduct a quantitative cross-group analysis on over 200 organizations involved in an armed intrastate conflict (1989–2018). At the micro level, I consider the kidnapping strategy of the Taliban in Afghanistan over time and space (2010–2018). Taken together, the analyses provide robust support for the theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rebel groups often develop governance during war by establishing administrative structures, engaging in taxation, and providing social services to the local population. Rebel governance structures, however, vary depending on the extent to which they include participatory arrangements. Some rebel groups allow civilian participation in their governance during the war, while others have highly hierarchical structures strictly limiting civilian participation. This paper examines whether and how the governance activities of rebel groups and participatory arrangements and institutions that they adopt during the war affect the durability of peace. I argue that participatory rebel governance can be particularly effective in establishing durable peace after the war. Civilian participation under rebel governance facilitates civilian political participation after conflict ends, which, in turn, discourages the use of political violence in response to grievances. Using rebel governance data between 1945 and 2012, I find strong empirical support for my argument. I then demonstrate the plausibility of the causal mechanism in the case of Indonesian and the Philippine civil wars. By establishing a strong positive empirical relationship between rebel wartime governance and the durability of peace, this paper identifies another important effect of rebel governance on conflict processes and outcomes in addition to its demonstrated effect on negotiations between warring parties and post-war democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what conditions do armed groups escalate their campaigns to civil war? Existing research suggests foreign states' material support is critical to explaining armed groups' conduct during civil war and, thereby, war intensification, duration, and outcomes. Thus far, little attention has been paid to understanding whether and how foreign support influences whether armed groups fight civil wars in the first place, largely due to data limitations. Armed group-level datasets have included only those already engaged in significant civil war violence, which introduces selection bias that precludes investigating factors that influence which groups fight civil wars. Leveraging the new Armed Groups Dataset (AGD), which measures characteristics of armed groups engaged in lower-level violence, we conduct a preliminary empirical investigation into the explanatory role of foreign sponsorship in group-level variation in civil war. While foreign sponsorship and civil war are correlated, there is little evidence that sponsorship has substantial independent explanatory value in predicting civil war. Rather, the evidence is consistent with claims that armed groups' organizational characteristics account for both access to foreign sponsorship and, independently, their likelihood of escalating civil war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The document is an editorial introduction for the journal "Civil Wars." It discusses the positive feedback received for the new editorial introductions and the success of their recent events and roundtables. The document also highlights the content of the current volume, which includes articles on topics such as the aftermath of the defeat of ISIS in Iraq, the dynamics between ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates, rebel governance structures in Apartheid South Africa, Houthi behaviors in Yemen, and the transformation of Pakistan's North Waziristan district. The editorial also announces changes to the journal's submission requirements, including the exclusion of bibliographies from word counts, the use of first names in citations, and the inclusion of page numbers in references. The editors also invite suggestions for peer reviewers and opposed reviewers. The document concludes with gratitude for the support received and an invitation to upcoming events. [Extracted from the article]

There is a vibrant literature on civil war onset and endurance. Previous research has demonstrated that weak states are unlikely to use diversionary measures given the greater likelihood of their defeat. I offer a theoretical contribution to the literature by disentangling why this is particularly the case. Using insights from the Houthi conflict in Yemen between 2004 and 2010, the article shows how the conflict, first initiated as a diversionary operation, increased the Houthi movement's grievances and galvanised an intra-regime power struggle leading to conflict endurance. The article, thus, offers one of the few exploratory applications of the domestic diversionary war theory in weak states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employs quantitative critical race theory (QuantCrit), set against a historical context backdrop, to understand key aspects of Black religious engagement and post-college educational pathways. The variables selected for this study illuminate post-graduation outcomes for Black students valued by the Freedmen's Bureau and other similarly focused organizations that coalesced immediately before, during, and shortly after the American Civil War. Data from the 1979-80 National Survey of Black Americans (NSBA) provides the content for an analysis herein of Black Americans engaging in the church following college graduation and their pursuit of advanced degrees. This survey conducted roughly 100 years following the Civil War, has remained influential to policymakers to the present day and allows an opportunity to reflect on today's views on Black education at this sesquicentennial juncture. So doing provides for a reconceptualization of Black post-college success as originally imagined by organizations dedicated to social and educational initiatives for freedmen and remains independent of the metrics that often obscure the landscape and perception of Black post-college success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rise of ISIS in eastern Syria after 2014, there was a discussion among Western powers about the possibility of arming Arab tribes to lead the fight against ISIS on the ground. This paper challenges the assumption that tribes are cohesive units and argues that internal differences and contested leadership run counter to the image of tribes as unified groups. While tribes are fragmented, one can, however, observe some examples that testify to the existence of tribal solidarity during the course of the Syrian civil war. Overall, this paper attempts to answer the following questions: What caused fragmentation among members of the Syrian tribes during the Syrian Civil War? What inspired cohesion in other instances? It argues that multiple factors, such as violence, patronage networks with internal and external authorities, and competition among leaders to represent the group internally and externally, can have a fundamental effect on the processes of cohesion and fragmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to examine how the Palestinian national ethos was formed based on both primordialism and territorial perceptions. It is based on primary sources—memoirs, public statements, and Palestinian media releases—dating back to the British Mandate for Palestine and examines the use of the basic elements of the ethos: victimhood, victory at all costs, and universal justice. The paper discerns two stages in the process of ethos formation: the first started in the 1910s and ended when the British Mandate was over. The second began after the civil war of 1947–1949 in Palestine. The loss of the Arab-Palestinian side and the consequences of the Nakba has not terminated yet. While the first stage focuses on injustice, the second phase includes all three features of the national ethos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article, titled "Afghan Civil War: Socialism vs. Islamism in a Globalized Arena," discusses the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and its consequences. The author, Elisabeth Leake, examines Afghanistan's experience of invasion and civil war in the context of global history of empire and anti-colonialism. The article explores the polarized tensions between socialism and Islamism in Afghanistan during the 1970s, as well as the international dynamics triggered by the invasion. Leake argues that the Afghan civil war was influenced by various outside actors, but Afghan actors still had agency in shaping the conflict. The article offers a broad-lens account of the invasion and its ongoing impact. [Extracted from the article]

The article uncovers the connection between Article II(e) of the Genocide Convention and the Greek Civil War (1946–49). Through archival research and secondary sources, it reconstructs the Greek legal arguments that framed the transfer of children conducted by the communist guerrillas in Northern Greece as an act of genocide and led to the inclusion of this action in the legal definition of genocide. By analyzing the arguments of the Greek government, it presents a new interpretation of Article II(e) of the Convention. It is contended that the historical antecedent of the provision supports a biopolitical understanding of the genocidal act in question. The article concludes with a more general discussion of the continuing importance of Article II(e). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1905, Manuel Estrada Cabrera, one of Guatemala's most infamous dictators, inaugurates a gargantuan relief map, one of Latin American's most dramatic cartographic projects of the time. In 1882, the nation had relinquished vast regions of its territory to Mexico. This exemplified the region's fragility in the face of continuous Central American civil wars and a commercial weakness that rendered Guatemala vulnerable to foreign intervention, both political and economic. In this context, Guatemalan was faced with foundational narrative voids and a lack of any semblance of national identity. In this essay I contend that the state turned to the nation's volcanic geography as a solution: its dramatic landscapes could serve as both settings and protagonists for an alternative spatial narrative. I argue that the relief map can be read as an ideal fossilized artifact capturing these symbolic operations imposed by Guatemala's creole liberal elite within the complex global and national spatial dynamics of the time. In its monumentality, the map attempted to symbolically tap into and domesticate the power of the nation's landscape for the sake of national consolidation: a case of the natural sublime turned cultural/political sublime. In the process, and underlying these symbolic spatial operations, the State inflicted unprecedented violence on nature and rendered invisible entire sections of the population. The project ultimately fails, however, because the semantic power of a volcanic landscape is predicated on a chaotic and volatile land that had seeped into popular and political imagination through a long history of natural disasters and corresponding social turmoil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the long-run effect of war on environmental quality. Using data from the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset and the World Development Indicators, we apply a generalized difference-in-differences methodology. We compare the airborne emissions of countries that have experienced war after World War II (WWII) before and after the occurrence of the war event with the emissions of countries that did not experience any war after WWII. We find that, although wars decrease per capita CO2 emissions, they increase CO2 intensity. We also examine the effect of war on forest cover, which is found to be positive across all specifications. Lastly, we document differential effects by war type, country's legal origins, and income level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1947, the first electron microscope in Spain was installed at the Instituto de Óptica Daza de Valdés (IO-CSIC): an EMU-2A model from the U.S. company RCA. That instrument became what has been called a "frontier instrument, inventor of disciplines"; in this case, electron microscopy. This article analyses the activities of the IO around the microscope, between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the 1960s. During this time, the Instituto de Óptica was the institution, not the exclusive, but the main promoter of creating a new epistemic community in Spain dedicated to electron microscopy. In this paper, we will focus on analyzing the actors of this development: who they were, how they were formed, and their main motivations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the similarities between Susanna Centlivre's play "The Beau's Duel" and Jasper Mayne's plays "The Citye Match" and "The Amorous Warre." It is noted that Centlivre borrowed plot elements and speeches verbatim from Mayne's works, although she adapted them to suit the taste of her time. The article provides specific examples of the copied speeches and highlights the differences in how Centlivre used them in her comedy. The reason for Centlivre's decision to borrow from both plays remains unclear, but it is suggested that the two plays were republished together in 1658, which may have influenced her. [Extracted from the article]

The aim of this article is to analyze the family wealth management strategies deployed by women around Melipilla (Chile) during the 1810-1837 period. We have been able to establish that this period was particularly complex in the lives of both popular and elite families, due to the contingencies imposed by the War of Independence and the civil conflicts associated with the construction of the State. Despite this, women who found themselves alone, due to the recruitment, escape or imprisonment of their husbands, fathers, or sons, managed to carry out different initiatives of wealth management, such as the purchase, sale and lease of land, houses and belongings, as well as the development of small productive and commercial enterprises. This work was based on notarial and judicial sources, contained in the National Historical Archive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are some violent intrastate crises more likely to prompt humanitarian military interventions than others? States appear to intervene robustly in reaction to some internal conflicts, such as Kosovo, but withhold similar options in more intense conflict, as in Darfur. Much of the research on this 'selectivity gap' focuses on universal norms or geopolitical interests. I, however, argue that the selectivity of these interventions is a product of regional variations interacting with conflict perceptions. This paper introduces a dataset of almost 1000 observations of intrastate armed conflict between 1989 and 2014, paired with international military responses and non-responses, as well as an Intervention Index that accounts for the intensity of military interventions. I find that once a threshold of human suffering is met via the existence of an internal armed conflict, powerful states will intervene depending on whether the conflict occurs in the Western sphere of influence and whether it is denoted as an identity war. A Western region coupled with no perceptions of identity-based civil war prompts the greatest odds of humanitarian military intervention. Such conclusions carry implications on the role of norms and interests in international politics, as biased by region, and for military intervention as a policy choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While inclusion, participation and victim-centredness have become catchwords in transitional justice discourse, this rhetoric has not necessarily enabled the articulation of more complex identities and experiences, or the pursuit of varied justice claims. To probe this disconnect, this article engages with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, a mechanism established to reckon with the country's history of internal armed conflict, and hailed for its involvement of vulnerable, disenfranchised and oft-overlooked groups. The article combines expressive theories of justice with an innovative corpus-based methodology to critically examine how the Commission made visible, defined and construed these actors through its language of inclusion. Results from word frequency, co-occurrence and sentiment analyses illustrate how the Commission foregrounded the plight and rights of women and children, and their participation as a vehicle for emancipation, but simultaneously reproduced universalist and static identities, fixation on sexual violence and child soldier recruitment, and subject positions lacking in positive or political capabilities. This duality points to inherent tensions in the expressive messaging of TJ institutions, and rather locates the transformative potential of their inclusionary language in the strategic openings it affords for victims' groups, women and youth organizations in their broader trajectories towards justice and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship has seen the peace agreement between Colombian government and the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) guerrillas a milestone in closing more than 50 years of internal armed conflict. Indeed, the traditional practice of subversive warfare between the two sides ended. However, this did not imply a true path to peacebuilding. The empirical and statistical evidence indicates the worsening of the conflict through the transformation of its practices and representations, into terrorism and transnational organized crime. This article contends that the FARC, as a political party, a new insurgent group, and a criminal actor, continues to have a main role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that between 1914 and 1924 the Bolsheviks' conception and propagation of self-determination underwent a significant transition from already-contested beginnings. Initially, despite resistance from both within and beyond the party, Vladimir Lenin's advocacy of national self-determination – including the right to secession – won out. However, though this was to some extent realized in practice after their seizure of power (after significant armed conflict about such matters), the upper echelons of the party, and Joseph Stalin in particular, sought to later decouple self-determination from the formation of the USSR. Partly the legacy of the turbulence of Russia's Civil War and related documents of international law such as the Treaty of Tartu, by mid-1921 the right to self-determination was confusingly replaced by the right to secession in Bolshevik discourse, and for the colonized peoples of the world in particular – on paper, at least. This replacement was reaffirmed in 1922 with the founding of the USSR and again in its constitution of 1924. The article concludes by stating the consequences of this for intellectual and/or conceptual historians, as well as for legal scholars intrigued by the sudden absence of self-determination in Soviet legal texts from an initial position of such prominence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Southern Europe in the age of revolutions" by Maurizio Isabella explores the political and social changes that occurred in Southern Europe during the 19th century. The author examines the impact of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars on the region, particularly in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. The book discusses the transformation of civil-military relations, the rise of patriotism, and the debates over constitutional rights and government. It also explores the struggles for independence in the Balkans and the Greek War of Independence. The author emphasizes the complex interplay between revolution and counter-revolution, as well as the diverse motivations and perspectives of different individuals and communities. The book highlights the role of religion, ethnicity, and social class in shaping political movements and conflicts. Overall, the book provides a comprehensive analysis of the political and social dynamics of Southern Europe during this period. [Extracted from the article]

Estimation of population size using incomplete lists has a long history across many biological and social sciences. For example, human rights groups often construct partial lists of victims of armed conflicts, to estimate the total number of victims. Earlier statistical methods for this setup often use parametric assumptions, or rely on suboptimal plug-in-type nonparametric estimators; but both approaches can lead to substantial bias, the former via model misspecification and the latter via smoothing. Under an identifying assumption that two lists are conditionally independent given measured covariates, we make several contributions. First, we derive the nonparametric efficiency bound for estimating the capture probability, which indicates the best possible performance of any estimator, and sheds light on the statistical limits of capture-recapture methods. Then we present a new estimator, that has a double robustness property new to capture-recapture, and is near-optimal in a nonasymptotic sense, under relatively mild nonparametric conditions. Next, we give a confidence interval construction method for total population size from generic capture probability estimators, and prove nonasymptotic near-validity. Finally, we apply them to estimate the number of killings and disappearances in Peru during its internal armed conflict between 1980 and 2000. for this article are available online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal on Criminology is the property of Policy Studies Organization and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Scholars have often focused on the negative involvement of young people in violent conflicts in the African continent, subsequently denying them the attention they need during post-conflict peacebuilding processes. In South Sudan, this study challenges the negative portrayal of young people who participated in the country’s civil wars, arguing that they were victims of their political and economic circumstances. Using primary and secondary data, the author interviewed youth leaders leading various civil society youth organisations promoting the country’s peacebuilding process and used academic papers, websites, newspaper articles, and reports of credible local and international organizations. The paper concludes that while indeed young people participated in South Sudan’s pre and post-independent conflicts, they were mere victims of their political and economic predicaments. Thus, instead of entirely viewing young people’s role in the conflicts from the ‘perpetrator angle,’ we should focus on examining it from the ‘perception of victimhood.’ This lays the foundation for their full inclusion in the post-conflict peacebuilding processes such as disarmament, demobilization and reintegration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional characterizations of Lu Xun (1881–1936) as an "iconoclast" overlook his skepticism of the ways in which May Fourth conceptions of modernity privilege one particular trauma in Chinese history —foreign imperialism — over others of equal or arguably even greater significance. This essay investigates this other Lu Xun through a reading of his short story "Looking Back to the Past" (Huaijiu, 1913), which depicts traumas provoked by the Taiping Civil War (1850–1864). I show that this story captures a discursive system whose major components — be it the classic tradition-modernity dichotomy or leading alternative paradigms — all prove incapable of fully assimilating the epistemological, historical, and human violence constituted by the War. Seen in this light, Chinese modernity represents not the clean break with the past envisioned in May Fourth ideology but rather a continued effort to work through the past that even Lu Xun cannot bring to completion. In nuancing our understanding of Lu Xun and the dominant discourses of his era, this essay ultimately also challenges discourses dominant in our own era — above all, our stubbornly Westernized notions of what made modern Chinese literature "modern." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the history of the national anthem of China that provides a new perspective on society and culture during the regimes of the Qing dynasty and People's Republic of China. It describes attempts to create a national anthem during the Qing dynasty and the controversy that surrounded the first official Qing national anthem. It discusses the creation of the song "March of the Volunteers" for a war film that became the national anthem when People's Republic of China was founded.

Why did the United States move from having nearly open borders from the 1840s to the 1870s to passing the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, the first law in American history to ban people from entering the United States solely based on race? We argue that the standard story of nativist backlash based on wage pressure explains the demand for immigration restrictions, but not their timing or their racial focus. The demand for immigration restrictions was largely inchoate until the political restructuring that followed the Civil War. Finding themselves uncompetitive in much of the country, the Democrats seized on immigration restrictions, most notably in growing California, as a wedge issue. Chinese residents were unable to vote, thus making restrictions on Chinese entry an especially effective strategy in political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Jurnal Jurisprudence is the property of Jurnal Jurisprudence and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Ecología Política is the property of Fundacio ENT and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

To contextualize the all-female American production of Plautus' Rudens at Washington University in St. Louis in 1884 by the university's Ladies' Literary Society, my discussion considers the topic of Plautus' comedy--freeborn Greeks threatened with enslavement--and the historical circumstances of its first staging in ca. 200 BCE; the historical circumstances surrounding the production, in a former slave state, less than two decades after the US Civil War; and, to illuminate the milieu in which the female students revised and performed Plautus' text, the lives and professional contributions of five prominent American women classicists educated between 1865 and 1917. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Letras (Lima) is the property of Letras, Facultad de Letras y Ciencias Humanas. Universidad Nacional Mayor De San Marcos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The cultural history of the Civil War North has flourished since the turn of the twenty-first century. Scholars have impeccably analyzed wartime texts and images to clarify Northern citizens' and soldiers' shared ideological and emotional commitments. Yet, these historians have not fully reckoned with the interconnected nature of culture production in genres such as blackface minstrelsy, lithography, illustrated newspapers, photography, and theater through which Northerners made, circulated, used, and experienced culture commodities. This economic system of culture production often created or illuminated social conflict and ambiguous cultural meaning. The culture industry, a concept that has animated debate among historians of popular culture for decades, holds great potential for Civil War historians to open new perspectives on the experiences of Union soldiers and citizens and the ways they did cultural work to make the meanings of class and self-making, race and emancipation, gender and the household, and the war itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era" by Jacqueline Jones explores the challenges faced by Black workers in Boston during the Civil War era. The book highlights the economic cruelty and discrimination experienced by Black workers, who often faced limited job opportunities, low pay, and segregated workplaces. The author argues that the Civil War did little to improve the conditions of Black workers and that the abolitionist movement focused more on political democracy than on addressing work and wages. The book sheds light on the classed dimensions of legalism, economic justice, and the limits of political democracy under capitalism. [Extracted from the article]

The given text is a review of three books related to the Civil War era. The first book, "Medicine, Science, and Making Race in Civil War America" by Leslie A. Schwalm, explores how organizations such as the United States Sanitary Commission and military medicine contributed to the development of racial science during the war. The second book, "No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era" by Jacqueline Jones, examines the economic hardships faced by Black workers in Boston during the abolitionist movement. The third book is not mentioned in the summary. The review provides an overview of the main arguments and themes of each book, highlighting their contributions to understanding the Civil War era. [Extracted from the article]

The given text includes reviews of three books related to the Civil War era. The first book, "Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era" by Frances M. Clarke and Rebecca Jo Plant, explores the presence of underage soldiers in the Civil War and how their enlistment raised questions about family obligations and federal power. The second book, "The Weaker Sex in War: Gender and Nationalism in Civil War Virginia" by Kristen Brill, examines the role of middle- and planter-class white Southern women in shaping Confederate political culture and their relationship with Confederate leaders. The third book is not summarized in the given text. These books provide valuable insights into different aspects of the Civil War era and are recommended for those interested in the history of the time period. [Extracted from the article]

Editors' Note: The following essay is drawn from the acceptance speech for the Tom Watson Brown Book Award, conferred on the best book published on the Civil War era in 2022. Tad Brown, president of the Watson-Brown Foundation, awarded the prize to author and public historian R. Isabela Morales for Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom, published by Oxford University Press. Morales delivered her speech during the Southern Historical Association's annual meeting on November 10, 2023, in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Society of Civil War Historians judges and administers the book prize. In the essay, Morales discusses the subtle ways the Civil War shaped the lives of one African American family, the importance of family history to the larger field, and her challenges writing the book. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay features a discussion among several scholars of disability in the Civil War era on the major themes and issues within this small field. The panelists, including both historians and literature scholars, reflect the interdisciplinary nature of disability studies and make the case for why disability analysis is critical to understanding of the Civil War era. Disability, they argue, enriches our studies of slavery and freedom, military service, federal power and bureaucracy, the home front and veteranhood. The panelists also consider paths for future research, such as increasing our use of material history and exploring disabled lives during Reconstruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article has two objectives. The first one is to advance the existing studies on civil wars by developing a comparative approach. It explores similarities and differences between the Finnish and Korean experiences. The broader objective of the article is to initiate a project to explore potential connections between the Nordic region and the Korean peninsula. There are various direct and indirect linkages between the Nordic countries and Korea. Finland had long been part of Sweden and then part of Russia. Finland achieved independence, but it was immediately overshadowed by the war. Korea had long been influenced heavily by China and then colonised by Japan. Independence brought sunshine on the peninsula, but it soon disappeared with the Korean War. Against this backdrop, the article investigates the civil wars in Finland and Korea. In order to go beyond the existing research, the article pays attention to popular culture (film) depicting the two wars. The article also sheds light on how Finland and Korea have tried to pave the way to reconciliation. If the war still divides Finland even after 100 years, the reconciliation process in Korea would be much more complex and difficult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A 2022 survey in the USA found concerningly high prevalences of support for and personal willingness to engage in political violence, of beliefs associated with such violence, and of belief that civil war was likely in the near future. It is important to determine the durability of those findings. Methods: Wave 2 of a nationally representative cohort survey was conducted May 18-June 8, 2023; the sample comprised all respondents to 2022's Wave 1. Outcomes are expressed as weighted proportions; changes from 2022 to 2023 are for respondents who participated in both surveys, based on aggregated individual change scores. Results: The completion rate was 84.2%; there were 9385 respondents. After weighting, 50.7% (95% confidence interval (CI) 49.4%, 52.1%) were female; weighted mean (SD) age was 48.5 (25.9) years. About 1 in 20 respondents (5.7%, 95% CI 5.1%, 6.4%) agreed strongly/very strongly that "in the next few years, there will be civil war in the United States," a 7.7% decrease. In 2023, fewer respondents considered violence to be usually/always justified to advance at least 1 of 17 specific political objectives [25.3% (95% CI 24.7%, 26.5%), a 6.8% decrease]. However, more respondents thought it very/extremely likely that within the next few years, in a situation where they consider political violence justified, "I will be armed with a gun" [9.0% (95% CI 8.3%, 9.8%), a 2.2% increase] and "I will shoot someone with a gun" [1.8% (95% CI 1.4%, 2.2%), a 0.6% increase]. Among respondents who considered violence usually/always justified to advance at least 1 political objective, about 1 in 20 also thought it very/extremely likely that they would threaten someone with a gun (5.4%, 95% CI 4.0%, 7.0%) or shoot someone (5.7%, 95% CI 4.3%, 7.1%) to advance such an objective. Conclusions: In this cohort, support for political violence declined from 2022 to 2023, but predictions of firearm use in political violence increased. These findings can help guide prevention efforts, which are urgently needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the agency of UN mediators through a single case-study of the UN mediator in Syria – Staffan de Mistura. Drawing on and contributing to an emerging research agenda, we argue that UN mediators do have significant room of manoeuvre and thus the ability to conceive, negotiate, and execute key mediation policy-decisions. Our analysis bridges the literature on levels of analysis in International Relations (IR) and Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). We developed a method that uses process-tracing to identify distinct mediation initiatives. We then pinpoint the mediator’s input on the conceptual and operational components of these main pillars of the mediation process. We question the prevailing perspective wherein the individual mediator has become conspicuous by their absence as the research gaze has been geared towards contextual constraints to mediation, the organization employing the mediator, and developing generic guides for good practice in ‘successful’ mediation. We put the study of the mediator’s agency firmly back into the comparative study of mediation, this way strengthening the validity of arguments that mediators’ personalities, skills and their individual characteristics shape their mediation initiatives just as they point up to considerable personal responsibility for which they need to be better held to account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 2023 in Ecuador was characterized by a political crisis that erupted in the midst of escalating criminal violence. While the political crisis was eventually solved by means of new elections, the security crisis has persisted and even worsened during the first months of the presidency of Daniel Noboa. In response, in January 2024, the newly elected president proclaimed a state of "internal armed conflict" and declared 22 criminal gangs as terrorist groups. Against this background, the article reviews recent development in Ecuador as well as the corresponding academic scholarship to discuss two questions: Why and how has Ecuador - in such a short period of time - moved from being among the most peaceful countries in the region to one of the most violent ones? Which consequences of this escalating security crisis can we already observe for Ecuadorian politics and the democratic regime in more general terms? To make sense of Ecuador's shift from a relatively peaceful to a violence-ridden country, we identify three interrelated sets of causal factors: Ecuador's increasing role in the transnational drug business; the reconfiguration of Ecuador's criminal groups; and the social and political context in Ecuador. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]