Category: History
42 review(s) found that match this category.
In the Path of Destruction: Eyewitness Chronicles of Mount St. Helens
Summer 2015
Like the eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, the personal
stories of campers, loggers, airline pilots, Forest Service workers, and
geologists came pouring out before, during, and after the cataclysm.
One of those geologists, Richard W...
Categories: Earth sciences, History
Tags: Mount St. Helens, Volcanoes, Geology
New and Noteworthy
Spring 2015
Digitized Lives: Culture, Power, and Social Change in the Internet Era
by T.V. Reed :: Routledge, 2014 ::
T.V. Reed, a WSU English and American studies professor, examines the
impact of digital communication and the Internet on how we liv...
Categories: Social sciences, Fiction, History
Tags: Fantasy, Digital world, Hernán Cortés
Looking Like the Enemy: Japanese Mexicans, the Mexican State, and US Hegemony, 1897-1945
Spring 2015
Eizi Matuda and his wife Miduho Kaneko de Matuda were Japanese
immigrants who had become Mexican citizens and had lived there for 20
years when agents of the Mexican government came to their home to
relocate them. However, unlike thousands of J...
Categories: History
Tags: Mexico, Immigration, Internment camps
Red Light to Starboard: Recalling the Exxon Valdez Disaster
Winter 2014
The Exxon Valdez
and its 53 million gallons of crude oil made history on March 24, 1989.
In the weeks and months that followed, more than 10 million gallons of
oil bubbled into Alaska’s Prince William Sound.
Thousands of company menus, recor...
Categories: History, Memoirs
Tags: Exxon Valdez, Oil spill
Nikkei Baseball: Japanese American Players from Immigration and Internment to the Major Leagues
Winter 2014
Since Sam Regalado received his doctorate in history in 1987, he has
established himself as one of the leading authorities on the history of
baseball and the Hispanic population in the United States. Now a
professor at California State Universi...
Categories: Athletics, History, Cultural studies
Tags: Japanese-Americans, Baseball, Internment camps
Island Queens and Mission Wives: How Gender and Empire Remade Hawai‘i’s Pacific World
Fall 2014
When white missionaries landed on the sunlit shores of Hawai‘i in the
early nineteenth century, they believed they were bringing God, culture,
and civilization. They failed to realize that instead they were pulled
into a sophisticated and lon...
Categories: History
Tags: Hawaii, Missionaries
Hunger Immortal: The First Thirty Years of the West Seattle Food Bank, 1983–2013
Summer 2014
What is today the West Seattle Food Bank started as a shoestring
operation in an abandoned public school building. A pair of retired
grocers from South Dakota had taken on responsibility for distributing
government commodities like cheese and p...
Categories: Social work, History
Tags: Food security, Seattle
The Aesthetics of Strangeness: Eccentricity and Madness in Early Modern Japan
Summer 2014
Eccentricity and odd artistic behavior in the Edo period of Japan
(1600–1868) proliferated as an aesthetic subculture that both resisted
the rigidity of the Tokugawa realm and served as a source of moral and
cultural values.
This study by Br...
Categories: History, Cultural studies, Fine Arts
Tags: Japan, Artists, Eccentricity
New & Noteworthy for Spring 2014
Spring 2014
Operation Cody: An Undercover Investigation of Illegal Wildlife Trafficking in Washington State
by Todd A. Vandivert ’79 :: 2013 ::
Undercover game wardens Todd Vandivert and Jennifer Maurstad posed as
husband and wife businesspeople in...
Categories: History, Business
Tags: Wildlife trafficking, Computers, Africa
Rugged Mercy: A Country Doctor in Idaho’s Sun Valley
Fall 2013
When 13-year-old Robert Henry Wright was caught spying on a kitchen
table appendectomy, he was pulled in to assist. Inspired by that
experience, the Hailey, Idaho, boy spent his early 20s in medical
school, at first struggling to memorize...
Categories: History, Biography
Tags: Doctors, Frontier, Idaho
Oceania and the Victorian Imagination: Where All Things Are Possible
Fall 2013
Devotees of Victorian-era writers like Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules
Verne, H.G. Wells, and Joseph Conrad may well recognize the current of
interest in Oceania, or the South Pacific, that runs through their
stories.
During that period, from th...
Categories: Literature, History
Tags: Travel, Victorian Era, Oceania
New & Noteworthy
Summer 2013
Planet Rock Doc: Nuggets from Explorations of the Natural World
WSU Press, 2012
The Whole Story of Climate: What Science Reveals about the Nature of Endless Change
Prometheus Books, 2012
by E. Kirsten Peters
The Harvard-trained geologist, column...
Categories: Veterinary medicine, History, Earth sciences
Tags: Careers, American West, Climate change
Treasure, Treason and the Tower: El Dorado and the Murder of Sir Walter Raleigh
Spring 2013
Years ago while doing research in Stockholm, Sweden, Paul Sellin, a
scholar who specializes in literature and history of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, chanced upon some correspondence about Sir
Walter Raleigh and gold that he m...
Categories: History
Tags: Exploration, England, South America
Alpha Phi Alpha: A Legacy of Greatness, the Demands of Transcendence
Winter 2012
Alpha Phi Alpha is the only black fraternity to be founded at an Ivy
League school. Starting at Cornell in 1906, its founders were just a
generation away from slavery and intent on creating an organization to
foster academic scholarship, build ...
Categories: History, Cultural studies
Tags: Black fraternities, African Americans
The Republic of Nature: An Environmental History of the United States
Fall 2012
Contemplate the founding of the United States, a budding democracy
carved out of a vast and unknown (to everyone other than its original
inhabitants) wilderness. At some point, one might find oneself unable to
extricate American history from Na...
Categories: History, Environmental studies
Tags: Ecology, Environmentalists, Conservation
Finding the River
Fall 2012
In 1992, President George H. W. Bush signed into law the Elwha Act,
which called for the removal of two hydroelectric dams from the 45-mile
river that flows from Washington’s Olympic Range to the Strait of Juan
de Fuca. Over the past year, th...
Categories: History, Environmental studies
Tags: Dams, Fish
Of Little Comfort: War Widows, Fallen Soldiers, and the Remaking of the Nation after the Great War
Fall 2012
In World War I, or the Great War, more than nine million combatants
died, leaving behind approximately a million and a half widows. The war
widows not only mourned their losses, they also faced quandaries about
their new post-war roles in Germa...
Categories: History
Tags: Veterans, World War I, Widows
Alaska: A History
Summer 2012
In 1867 the Russia of Czar Alexander II was broke. As part of the
solution, the country sold its North American lands to the United States
for $7 million in a deal brokered by Secretary of State William Seward.
The transaction angered man...
Categories: History
Tags: Alaska
Winning the West for Women: The Life of Suffragist of Emma Smith DeVoe
Summer 2012
At a time when women’s rights and politics are dominating our national
discourse, it would be good to consider our past. Emma Smith DeVoe’s
story, for example, enhances our understanding of our nation’s Women’s
Suffrage movement a...
Categories: History, Political science
Tags: Suffrage, Voting, Women, American West
The Long Journey of the Nez Perce: A Battle History from Cottonwood to Bear Paw
Spring 2012
In his foreword to the latest account of the Nez Perce War of 1877, Kevin Carson ’81 writes, “In my memory, there was never a time when our family was not fascinated by the saga of the Nez Perce.” Carson’s great-great-great grandfather, Lev...
Categories: History, Military sciences
Tags: Native Americans, Native American leaders, Northwest history
Building New Pathways to Peace
Winter 2011
The idea of “peace” in our
complex and conflicted
world sometimes seems out
of reach or even antiquated.
The authors in this
collection recognize these
realities and make a
concerted effort to build a
new theory of peace studies.
N...
Categories: Social sciences, History, Cultural studies
Tags: World War II, Peace Studies
The Docks
Fall 2011
In my sailing days on Puget Sound, I got used to watching for the
fast-moving container ships that could overtake my little boat in a
matter of minutes. One day, I found their schedules on the Internet and
saw the outline of a huge, econo...
Categories: Business, History
Tags: Trade, California, Ports, Los Angeles
Mexican Women and the Other Side of Immigration: Engendering Transnational Ties
Spring 2011
There are communities of people who live their lives in two places at
once. Residents of Detroit, Michigan, and the small town of San
Ignacio, Mexico, for example. In her book, historian Luz Maria Gordillo
sets out to explain the history of thi...
Categories: History, Gender studies
Tags: Immigration, Mexican Americans, Women
A Marvelous Hundred Square Miles: Black Hills Tourism, 1880–1941
Spring 2011
The faces of four presidents gaze down on the Black Hills of South
Dakota, a fitting vigil for a tourist destination carved, like Mount
Rushmore itself, by public policy, political machinations, and private
investments.Historian Suzanne Barta J...
Categories: History
Tags: South Dakota, Black Hills, Tourism
Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America
Spring 2010
No figure in early twentieth-century Christianity gained as much
fame, notoriety, and acclaim as Aimee Semple McPherson. “Sister”
McPherson oversaw the rise of an expansive empire—church services,
radio, stagecraft, community service, pol...
Categories: History, Religion
Tags: Evangelical Christianity, Christianity, Women
Women's Voices: The Campaign for Equal Rights in Washington
Spring 2010
This year marks the 100-year anniversary of women’s suffrage in
Washington state. As the fifth state in the Union to allow women to
vote, Washington’s landmark was more than a half-century in the making.
In fact, in 1883, when Washington wa...
Categories: History, Washington state history, Political science
Tags: Women
"They are all Red Out Here": Socialist Politics in the Pacific Northwest, 1895-1925
Fall 2009
Few if any aspects of the Northwest’s political and labor history have been so thoroughly documented as the region’s most radical era, from the 1890s to the First World War. Books and articles have highlighted such topics as the rise of...
Categories: History
Tags: Northwest history, Labor and unions, Radical politics
Conquistador: Hernan Cortés, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs
Winter 2008
I suspect I am a good example of the intended audience for this book, which is a popular account of the strange, tragic relationship between Cortés and Montezuma, and the destruction of a way of life. I can't remember reading anything about Co...
Categories: History
Tags: Aztecs, Conquistadors
Anaconda: Labor, Community and Culture in Montana's Smelter City
Summer 2003
Anaconda, in southwest Montana, was home to the world's largest copper smelter. Marcus Daly established the first smelter in 1884. In 1980, the last plant closed its doors. Anaconda deals primarily with the community from the 1930s through the 1970s,...
Categories: History
Tags: Montana, Mining
With Amusement for All: A History of American Popular Culture since 1830
Spring 2007
For many years, the study of popular culture, like comedian Rodney Dangerfield, "got no respect." Only with the vast amount of excellent, sophisticated research in the last three decades has the culture preferred by millions of Americans become serio...
Categories: History
Tags: Popular culture
All Abraham's Children: Changing Conceptions of Race and Lineage
Spring 2004
This thoroughly documented study of race and identity within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints unravels various ways Mormons have constructed and negotiated their identity throughout history. Armand Mauss, professor emeritus of sociolog...
Categories: Sociology, History
Tags: Mormons
The War Years: A Chronicle of Washington State in World War II
Winter 2001
Most Washingtonians don't realize that their state—with a wartime population of just over 1.7 million—did as much or more per capita than any other state to help win World War II, says James R. Warren. The WSU alumnus ('49 S...
Categories: History
Tags: World War II
Sacajawea's People: The Lemhi Shoshones and the Salmon River Country
Winter 2005
In this year of 2005, the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, we are again reminded of the role Sacajawea played in that long journey westward. However, Sacajawea's tribe of origin, the Lemhi, has gone largely ignored. Only recently have ...
Categories: History
Tags: Native Americans
Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the America
Fall 2003
This gem of a book is actually about the gem state, Idaho—specifically, the Snake River Plain of southern Idaho, where farmers, engineers, lawyers, bankers, and politicians have carved an agricultural landscape out of the parched and dusty sage...
Categories: History, Agriculture
Tags: Snake River, Irrigation
Idaho's Bunker Hill: The Rise and Fall of a Great Mining Company, 1885
Fall 2006
Bunker Hill finally has a book worthy of its story. BH, during its heyday, was one of the nation's most important mining and smelting operations, and wielded unprecedented influence over Idaho politics. At the time it closed in 1981 it produced 15 pe...
Categories: History
Tags: Bunker Hill, Mining
The Dynamics of Change: A History of the Washington State Library
Summer 2002
Who better to write about the Washington State Library than Maryan Reynolds, state librarian from 1951 to 1974? She also played an important role in procuring the State Library building constructed in 1959 on the Capitol grounds in Olympia. The libra...
Categories: Library and museum studies, History
Tags: Library
During the War Women Went To Work
Fall 2008
How often have you heard a group of women in their eighties reminisce about their service in World War II? My guess is—never. Out of all the interviews, books, films, and commemorations about World War II, female voices have seldom been heard. This...
Categories: Gender studies, History
Tags: World War II
Washington's Historical Courthouses
Spring 2004
In Washington's Historical Courthouses, Ray Graves ('50 Pol. Sci.) has compiled a wonderful pictorial survey of the proud cultural and architectural heritage of the state. It contains beautiful photographs by Erick Erickson, a thoughtful introduction...
Categories: History, Architecture and design
Tags: Courthouses
Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest
Spring 2005
In Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest, Linda Carlson provides much insight into the rewards and trials of life in the small, isolated communities of a bygone Northwest. A company town was generally a glorified camp establish...
Categories: History
Tags: Company towns
The Cayton Legacy: An African American Family
Summer 2002
Set in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York, The Cayton Legacy chronicles the evolution of a remarkable African American family. From the Civil War to the present, generations of the Horace and Susie Cayton family helped illuminate the black...
Categories: Cultural studies, History
Tags: African Americans
Bunion Derby: The 1928 Footrace Across America
Summer 2008
For generations, the 1920s have provided fodder for authors. The super-hyped sensationalism of those ballyhooed years seems a bottomless pool of entertaining topics. The decade of Lindbergh, Valentino, Capone, and Ruth, of flappers, Mah Jong, crosswo...
Categories: History, Athletics
Tags: Track and field
Domesticating the West: The Re-creation of the Nineteenth-Century Amer
Summer 2007
In Domesticating the West, Brenda K. Jackson '02, a Washington State University history Ph.D., explores the settlement of the West by the 19th-century middle class. Specifically, Jackson presents a dual biography of Thomas and Elizabeth Tannatt, midd...
Categories: History
Tags: Middle class, American West