Tag Archives: war

Yale historian Jay Winter: War is a Pandora’s Box

Jay Winter, the Charles J. Stille Professor of History and editor of the recently published three-volume “Cambridge History of the First World War,” recently spoke to YaleNews about how WWI has impacted the 20th century, what lessons can be learned from the conflict, and the emergence of a global history of the so-called “Great War.” The following is an edited version of that conversation.

One of your areas of study is the remembrance of war in the 20th century, such as memorial and mourning sites. What led you to study this topic?

My mother’s family was wiped out in the Holocaust, and its shadow haunted my childhood. Writing about mourning practices in the aftermath of the First World War was an indirect way of confronting indirectly part of my childhood. (more…)

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Playing with future of British armed forces

Social scientists are to examine whether action figure dolls help form children’s opinions on war and have a role to play in shaping the future of our armed forces.

It is the first time research has examined the role of toys in the making of young citizens. The £492,508 project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

The researchers, Dr Sean Carter, from Geography at the University of Exeter, Dr Tara Woodyer, of the University of Portsmouth and Professor Klaus Dodds, of Royal Holloway University of London, have expertise in human geography, children’s play, childhood studies, geopolitics and the culture of war. (more…)

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Study: Nearly 500,000 perished in Iraq war

Researchers from four universities, including the University of Washington, estimate that nearly a half-million people died from causes attributable to the war in Iraq from 2003 through 2011.

The results, from the first population-based survey since 2006 to estimate war-related deaths in Iraq and the first covering the conflict’s full timespan, are published Oct. 15 in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine. (more…)

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Christmas Miracle

Author discusses World War I Christmas truce at UDARF luncheon

An unbelievable thing happened during the first holiday season of World War I — peace broke out.

How the killing stopped for a few days in northern France and Flanders was the topic of a talk given by Stanley Weintraub, the author of Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce (Free Press 2002), during a University of Delaware Association of Retired Faculty luncheon held Tuesday, Dec. 4, in Clayton Hall.

Weintraub, the Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Arts and Humanities at Penn State University, has written numerous histories and biographies, including Long Day’s Journey Into War: Pearl Harbor and a World at War-December 7, 1941 (Dutton Adult, 1991). (more…)

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‘Disposable Heroes’

UD sociologist writes book about ‘betrayal’ of African American veterans

For the University of Delaware’s Benjamin Fleury-Steiner, research for his new book Disposable Heroes: The Betrayal of African American Veterans was uncomfortable and disquieting.

An associate professor of sociology, Fleury-Steiner spent months interviewing black veterans of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan in the back streets of Wilmington, Del., to learn more about their service to their country and their experiences upon returning home.

The topic had long been on Fleury-Steiner’s mind, himself an Army veteran of Operation Desert Storm who had ducked Scud missiles in Saudi Arabia. (more…)

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PTSD Consortium

Researchers seek better ways to diagnose, treat disorder

Tania Roth studies what happens to the brain when stress occurs early in life, seeking to pinpoint how those kinds of bad experiences can cause molecular changes to DNA.

Now, by participating in a national consortium of researchers, the assistant professor of psychology at the University of Delaware is hoping to use her expertise to contribute to a better understanding of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). (more…)

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Amazonian Tribal Warfare Sheds Light on Modern Violence, Says MU Anthropologist

Developing a shared sense of global community could help reduce major episodes of violence

In the tribal societies of the Amazon forest, violent conflict accounted for 30 percent of all deaths before contact with Europeans, according to a recent study by University of Missouri anthropologist Robert Walker. Understanding the reasons behind those altercations in the Amazon sheds light on the instinctual motivations that continue to drive human groups to violence, as well as the ways culture influences the intensity and frequency of violence.

“The same reasons – revenge, honor, territory and jealousy over women – that fueled deadly conflicts in the Amazon continue to drive violence in today’s world,” said Walker, lead author and assistant professor of anthropology in MU’s College of Arts and Science. “Humans’ evolutionary history of violent conflict among rival groups goes back to our primate ancestors. It takes a great deal of social training and institutional control to resist our instincts and solve disputes with words instead of weapons. Fortunately, people have developed ways to channel those instincts away from actual deadly conflict. For example, sports and video games often involve the same impulses to defeat a rival group.” (more…)

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