Tag Archives: civil war

War’s Lasting Legacy is a Culture of Violence

The civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia ended 10 years ago but these West African nations continue to struggle, partly because the wars created an economy based on warfare. Young men and boys recruited into militia movements during wartime turned to other violent jobs – in diamond mines, on rubber plantations and in other unregulated industries – after the wars ended. (more…)

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Civil War Troops Fought the Weather 150 Years Ago During Battle

*MU meteorologists say weather played a key role in union defeat*

COLUMBIA, Mo. ­— One hundred fifty years ago, two armies battled each other and the weather in Missouri’s first significant Civil War battle.  While the battle’s course is familiar to historians, virtually no scientific data exists about the atmospheric conditions that influenced the fighting. In a project that blends history, sleuthing and modern weather analysis, Tony Lupo, professor and chair of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Missouri, and Mike Madden, a meteorology student, have scientifically examined the heavy rains that hampered the union forces, eventually leading to a costly defeat. (more…)

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‘America’s Deadliest War Also is Most Memorialized’

As the nation recognizes the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s start, public interest has been rekindled in the war and the numerous memorials and monuments marking historic figures, sites and battlegrounds in states around the country.

South Carolina militiamen fired the first shots of the Civil War at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and over the next four years more than 10,000 military engagements between the North and South took place. In the end more than 600,000 soldiers died. (more…)

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Crime And The Rise of Modern America

Nowhere celebrates its criminals like America. In books and on film, in fact and in fiction criminals sell. 

The way people break the law has shaped American national identity just as clearly as any war according to research by University of Exeter historian, Dr Kristofer Allerfeldt.

His new book ‘Crime and the Rise of Modern America’ examines how crime and America are intertwined, defining each other. The research suggests that crime performs a role central to our understanding of America’s economic growth and its emergence as a super power. (more…)

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