America S Abandoned Sons

"QUOTE" Tens of thousands of America's WWII, Korean Conflict, and Vietnam War military servicemen ended up as hostages secretly hijacked into the USSR. Today this regrettable saga is still one of America's most closely guarded secrets. As WWII ended Stalin captured all of Germany's eastern areas in which tens of thousands of captured American POWs were then being detained by Hitler's armed forces. Stalin secretly held them as hostages and denied any knowledge of them as the Cold War began. Their status unknown, Washington eventually declared them dead when in fact they were still alive in captivity. Thousands more were lost the same way when the Korean War ended: China and the USSR secretly exploited these hostages for intelligence purposes and then also disposed of them. Vietnam saw still more held back by Hanoi after that conflict ended, for the same reasons again. Today these abandoned sons, a few of whom may still be alive in captivity as you read this, are considered one of Washington's most closely guarded secrets. Now is time to expose this secret and end this unfortunate Cold War saga.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Dust of Life is a collection of vivid and devastating oral histories of Vietnamese Amerasians. Abandoned during the war by their American fathers, discriminated against by the victorious Communists, and ignored for many years by the American government, they endured life in impoverished Vietnam. Their stories are sad, sometimes tragic, but they are also testimonials to the strength of human resiliency. While unique in many respects, the Vietnamese Amerasian story also illustrates themes that are tragically universal: neglect of the human by-products of war, the destructiveness of prejudice and racism, the pain of abandonment, and the horrors of life amidst extreme poverty, hostility, and neglect.

More than 150 key social issues confronting the United States today are covered in this eight-volume set: from abortion and adoption to capital punishment and corporate crime; from obesity and organized crime to sweatshops and xenophobia.

McKelvey has collected vivid and devastating oral histories of Vietnamese Amerasians who were abandoned during the war by their American fathers.

In the early development of the modern Italian state, individual orphanages were a reflection of the intertwining of politics and charity. Nearly half of the children who lived in the cities of the late Italian Renaissance were under fifteen years of age. Grinding poverty, unstable families, and the death of a parent could make caring for these young children a burden. Many were abandoned, others orphaned. At a time when political rulers fashioned themselves as the "fathers" of society, these cast-off children presented a very immediate challenge and opportunity. In Bologna and Florence, government and private institutions pioneered orphanages to care for the growing number of homeless children. Nicholas Terpstra discusses the founding and management of these institutions, the procedures for placing children into them, the children's daily routine and education, and finally their departure from these homes. He explores the role of the city-state and considers why Bologna and Florence took different paths in operating the orphanages. Terpstra finds that Bologna's orphanages were better run, looked after the children more effectively, and were more successful in returning their wards to society as productive members of the city's economy. Florence's orphanages were larger and harsher, and made little attempt to reintegrate children into society. Based on extensive archival research and individual stories, Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance demonstrates how gender and class shaped individual orphanages in each city's network and how politics, charity, and economics intertwined in the development of the early modern state.