Images From The Arsenal Of Democracy

While researching his previous study, Arsenal of Democracy: The American Automobile Industry in World War II (Wayne State University Press, 2013), award-winning automotive historian Charles K. Hyde discovered the many remarkable photos that were part of the era’s historical documentation. In Images from the Arsenal of Democracy, Hyde presents a selection of nearly three hundred of these documentary photos in striking black and white, with brief captions. Taken together, the images create a captivating portrait of this crucial moment in American business, military, and cultural history. Images from the Arsenal of Democracy spans from 1940 until the end of the war, presenting up-close, rarely seen views of newly built plants and repurposed production lines, a staggering variety of war products and components, and the many workers behind Detroit’s wartime production miracles. The human faces that Hyde presents are especially compelling, as photos show the critical role played by previously underused workers—namely women and African Americans. Images from the Arsenal is divided into chapters by theme, including “Preparing for War before Pearl Harbor”; “Planning Defense Production after Pearl Harbor”; “Aircraft Engines and Propellers”; “Aircraft Components and Complete Aircraft”; “Tanks and Other Armored Vehicles”; “Jeeps, Trucks, and Amphibious Vehicles”; “Guns, Shells, Bullets, and Other War Goods”; “The New Workers”; and “Celebrating the Production Achievements.” The first comprehensive and detailed history drawn solely from the surviving photographic record of wartime Detroit, Images from the Arsenal will be appreciated by automotive historians, World War II scholars, and American history buffs.

In contrast with historical examinations centring the evolving role of the war correspondent, Conflicting Images focuses on the contribution of photographers and photojournalists, providing an evaluative appraisal of war photography in the news and its development from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first century. Stuart Allan and Tom Allbeson critically explore diverse genres of war photography across a broad historical sweep, encompassing events from the Crimean War (1853–56) and the Civil War in the United States (1861–65) up to and including conflicts unfolding in Syria and Ukraine. This book reflects on the relevance of different types of warfare to visual reporting, from colonial conquest via trench warfare and aerial bombardment, to the ideological dimensions of the Cold War, and ‘embedding’ and ‘winning hearts and minds’ during the ‘War on Terror’ and its aftermath. In pinpointing illustrative examples, the authors examine changing dynamics of production, dissemination, and public engagement. Readers will come to understand how current efforts to rethink the future of war photography in a digital age can benefit from a close and careful consideration of war photography’s origins, early development, and gradual, uneven transformation over the years. Conflicting Images aims to invigorate ongoing enquires and inspire new, alternative trajectories for future research and practice. This book is recommended reading for researchers and advanced students of visual journalism and conflict reporting.

It has long been a truism that prior to George W. Bush, politics stopped at the water's edge - that is, that partisanship had no place in national security. In Arsenal of Democracy, historian Julian E. Zelizer shows this to be demonstrably false: partisan fighting has always shaped American foreign policy and the issue of national security has always been part of our domestic conflicts. Based on original archival findings, Arsenal of Democracy offers new insights into nearly every major national security issue since the beginning of the cold war: from FDR's masterful management of World War II to the partisanship that scarred John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, from Ronald Reagan's fight against Communism to George W. Bush's controversial War on Terror. A definitive account of the complex interaction between domestic politics and foreign affairs over the last six decades, Arsenal of Democracy is essential reading for anyone interested in the politics of national security.

Written by leading historians and political scientists, this collection of essays offers a broad and comprehensive coverage of the role of war in American history. Addressing the role of the armed force, and attitudes towards it, in shaping and defining the United States, the first four chapters reflect the perspectives of historians on this central question, from the time of the American Revolution to the US wars in Vietnam and Iraq. Chapters five and six offer the views of political scientists on the topic, one in light of the global systems theory, the other from the perspective of domestic opinion and governance. The concluding essay is written by historians Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton, whose co-authored book The Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty in North America, 1500-2000 provided the common reading for the symposium which produced these essays. America, War and Power will be of much interest to students and scholars of US military history, US politics and military history and strategy in general.

Presidential Image has become an integral part of the campaign, presidency and legacy of Modern American presidents. Across the 20th century to the age of Trump, presidential image has dominated media coverage and public consciousness, winning elections, gaining support for their leadership in office and shaping their reputation in history. Is the creation of the presidential image part of a carefully conceived public relations strategy or result of the president's critics and opponents? Can the way the media interpret a presidents' actions and words alter their image? And how much influence do cultural outputs contribute to the construction of a presidential image? Using ten presidential case studies. this edited collection features contributions from scholars and political journalists from the UK and America, to analyse aspects of Presidential Image that shaped their perceived effectiveness as America's leader, and to explore this complex, controversial, and continuous element of modern presidential politics.

"This book examines the roots of the military industrial complex (MIC) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the MIC's full flowering in the wake of the Cold War, and how America's current MIC evolved after the events of 9/11 and throughout the War on Terror. Specifically, Cooling argues that the MIC has transformed into a problematic demand for absolute security that is neither practicable nor financially sound. While emphasizing many aspects of Eisenhower's broad conception of the MIC, and Eisenhower's own warning at the close of World War II, Cooling's synthesis provides historical perspective on American industry as a matter of national security, on the rise of outsourcing practices, and on the changing nature of modern warfare"--

This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to the study of comic-books, mobilising them as a means to understand better the political context in which they are produced. Structured around key political events in the US between 1938 and 1975, the author combines analyses of visual and textual discourse, including comic-book letters pages, to come to a more complete picture of the relationship between comic-books as documents and the people who read and created them. Exploring the ways in which ideas about the US and its place in the world were represented in major superhero comic-books during the tumultuous period of US history from the Great Depression to the political trauma of Watergate and the end of the Vietnam War, Superheroes and American Self-Image sheds fresh light on the manner in which comic-books shape and are shaped by contemporary politics. As such it will appeal to scholars of cultural and media studies, history and popular culture.