The award-winning author of Kentucky Marine “has crafted an excellent account of how World War I impacted Kentucky socially, economically, and politically” (Journal of America’s Military Past). From five thousand children marching in a parade, singing, “Johnnie get your hoe . . . Mary dig your row,” to communities banding together to observe Meatless Tuesdays and Wheatless Wednesdays, Kentuckians were loyal supporters of their country during the First World War. Kentucky had one of the lowest rates of draft dodging in the nation, and the state increased its coal production by 50 percent during the war years. Overwhelmingly, the people of the Commonwealth set aside partisan interests and worked together to help the nation achieve victory in Europe. David J. Bettez provides the first comprehensive analysis of the impact of the Great War on Bluegrass society, politics, economy, and culture, contextualizing the state’s involvement within the national experience. His exhaustively researched study examines the Kentucky Council of Defense—which sponsored local war-effort activities—military mobilization and preparation, opposition and dissent, and the role of religion and higher education in shaping the state’s response to the war. It also describes the efforts of Kentuckians who served abroad in military and civilian capacities, and postwar memorialization of their contributions. Kentucky and the Great War explores the impact of the conflict on women’s suffrage, child labor, and African American life. In particular, Bettez investigates how black citizens were urged to support a war to make the world “safe for democracy” even as their civil rights and freedoms were violated in the Jim Crow South. This engaging and timely social history offers new perspectives on an overlooked aspect of World War I.

When World War II broke out in Europe in September 1939, Kentucky was still plagued by the Great Depression. Even though the inevitably of war had become increasingly apparent earlier that year, the citizens of the Commonwealth continued to view foreign affairs as a lesser concern compared to issues such as the lingering economic depression, the approaching planting season, and the upcoming gubernatorial race. It was only the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that destroyed any lingering illusions of peace. In Committed to Victory: The Kentucky Home Front During World War II, author Richard Holl offers the first comprehensive examination of the Commonwealth's civilian sector during this pivotal era in the state's history. National mobilization efforts rapidly created centers of war production and activity in Louisville, Paducah, and Richmond, producing new economic prosperity in the struggling region. The war effort also spurred significant societal changes, including the emergence of female and minority workforces in the state. In the Bluegrass, this trend found its face in Pulaski County native Rose Will Monroe, who was discovered as she assembled B-24 and B-29 bombers and was cast as Rosie the Riveter in films supporting the war effort. Revealing the struggles and triumphs of civilians during World War II, Holl illuminates the personal costs of the war, the black market for rationed foods and products, and even the inspiration that coach Adolph Rupp and the University of Kentucky basketball team offered to a struggling state. Committed to Victory is a timely and engaging account that fills a significant gap in the literature on a crucial period of American history.

In late December 1914, German and British soldiers on the western front initiated a series of impromptu, unofficial ceasefires. Enlisted men across No Man's Land abandoned their trenches and crossed enemy lines to sing carols, share food and cigarettes, and even play a little soccer. Collectively known as the Christmas Truce, these fleeting moments of peace occupy a mythical place in remembrances of World War I. Yet new accounts suggest that the heartwarming tale ingrained in the popular imagination bears little resemblance to the truth. In this detailed study, Terri Blom Crocker provides the first comprehensive analysis of both scholarly and popular portrayals of the Christmas Truce from 1914 to present. From books by influential historians to the Oscar-nominated French film Joyeux Noel (2006), this new examination shows how a variety of works have both explored and enshrined this outbreak of peace amid overwhelming violence. The vast majority of these accounts depict the soldiers as acting in defiance of their superiors. Crocker, however, analyzes official accounts as well as private letters that reveal widespread support among officers for the détentes. Furthermore, she finds that truce participants describe the temporary ceasefires not as rebellions by disaffected troops but as acts of humanity and survival by professional soldiers deeply committed to their respective causes. The Christmas Truce studies these ceasefires within the wider war, demonstrating how generations of scholars have promoted interpretations that ignored the nuanced perspectives of the many soldiers who fought. Crocker's groundbreaking, meticulously researched work challenges conventional analyses and sheds new light on the history and popular mythology of the War to End All Wars.

The First World War is a watershed in the intellectual and spiritual history of the modern world. On the one hand, it brought an end to a sense of optimism and decency bred by the prosperity of nineteenth-century Europe. On the other, it brought forth a sense of futility and alienation that has since pervaded European thought. That cataclysmic experience is richly reflected in the work of writers and artists from both sides of the conflict, and this study provides a detailed analysis of two basic themes—death and degradation—that mark the literature about the war. From their accounts most men entered the war lightheartedly, filled with ideals of patriotism and glory, but these generous feelings were soon quelled as the war settled into a stalemate, its operations reduced to simply grinding away the opposing forces. In these operations, Alfredo Bonadeo shows, men became mere aggregations thrown against one another, wasted with no appreciable effects or gains, save carnage itself. This cheapening and disregard for human life and being Bonadeo finds rooted not only in the conditions of war but, significantly, in a contempt for the common man prevailing in European political and intellectual circles. This attitude is revealed most plainly in his analysis of the Italian literature, which hitherto has received little note. Italian leaders saw the war as an opportunity to expiate a sense of national guilt, and here the inconclusive campaigns made their futility all the greater. Out of the torn fields of the First World War grew the seeds of a second, greater conflict, but, Professor Bonadeo concludes, the flowering of the seeds was aided by the degradation of man's spirit on those fields. The grim focus of this book, the dead voices it evokes, leads to a new appreciation of the meaning of the Great War.

This unique Civil War history chronicles the hard-fought battles and divided loyalties of a pro-Southern county in Union Kentucky. When the Civil War broke out, Kentucky was officially neutral—but the people of Harrison County felt differently. Volunteers lined up at the train depot in Cynthiana to join the Confederate Army, cheered on by pro-Southern local officials. After the state fell under Union Army control, this “pestilential little nest of treason” became a battlefield during some of the most dramatic military engagements in the state. Because of its political leanings and strategic position along the Kentucky Central Railroad, Harrison County became the target of multiple raids by Confederate general John Hunt Morgan. Conflict in the area culminated in the Second Battle of Cynthiana, in which Morgan's men clashed with Union troops led by Major General Stephen G. Burbridge—known as the “Butcher of Kentucky”—resulting in the destruction of much of the town by fire. In this fascinating Civil War history, William A. Penn draws on dozens of period newspapers as well as personal journals, memoirs, and correspondence from citizens, slaves, soldiers, and witnesses to provide a vivid account of the war's impact on the region.

This book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. So that the book is never forgotten we have represented this book in a print format as the same form as it was originally first published. Hence any marks or annotations seen are left intentionally to preserve its true nature.

From five thousand children marching in a parade, singing, "Johnnie get your hoe.... Mary dig your row," to communities banding together to observe Meatless Tuesdays and Wheatless Wednesdays, Kentuckians were loyal supporters of their country during the First World War. Kentucky had one of the lowest rates of draft dodging in the nation, and the state increased its coal production by 50 percent during the war years. Overwhelmingly, the people of the Commonwealth set aside partisan interests and worked together to help the nation achieve victory in Europe. David J. Bettez provides the first comprehensive analysis of the impact of the Great War on Bluegrass society, politics, economy, and culture, contextualizing the state's involvement within the national experience. His exhaustively researched study examines the Kentucky Council of Defense—which sponsored local war-effort activities—military mobilization and preparation, opposition and dissent, and the role of religion and higher education in shaping the state's response to the war. It also describes the efforts of Kentuckians who served abroad in military and civilian capacities, and postwar memorialization of their contributions. Kentucky and the Great War explores the impact of the conflict on women's suffrage, child labor, and African American life. In particular, Bettez investigates how black citizens were urged to support a war to make the world "safe for democracy" even as their civil rights and freedoms were violated in the Jim Crow South. This engaging and timely social history offers new perspectives on an overlooked aspect of World War I.

Top scholars contribute to this book of essays on the complex series of battles and political maneuvers for control of Kentucky during the Civil War.

New Modernist Studies, while reviving and revitalizing modernist studies through lively, scholarly debate about historicity, aesthetics, politics, and genres, is struggling with important questions concerning the delineation that makes discussion fruitful and possible. This volume aims to explore and clarify the position of the so-called ‘core’ of literary modernism in its seminal engagement with the Great War. In studying the years of the Great War, we find ourselves once more studying ‘the giants,’ about whom there is so much more to say, as well as adding hitherto marginalized writers – and a few visual artists – to the canon. The contention here is that these war years were seminal to the development of a distinguishable literary practice which is called ‘modernism,’ but perhaps could be further delineated as ‘Great War modernism,’ a practice whose aesthetic merits can be addressed through formal analysis. This collection of essays offers new insight into canonical British/American/European modernism of the Great War period using the critical tools of contemporary, expansionist modernist studies. By focusing on war, and on the experience of the soldier and of those dealing with issues of war and survival, these studies link the unique forms of expression found in modernism with the fragmented, violent, and traumatic experience of the time.