Conscription, Family, and the Modern State
Conscription, Family, and the Modern State

Author: Dorit Geva

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-08-12

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 1107024986

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book compares how the American draft system and the French conscription system came to be. Although the French and American conscription systems were very different from one another, they had some surprising similarities, especially during the first half of the twentieth century. French and American leaders were concerned with military service's effects on men's family life, as conscription removed men from their homes, and soldiers could be injured or never return home. These concerns influenced how conscription was organized in each country.

Taps For A Jim Crow Army
Taps For A Jim Crow Army

Author: Christy McGuire

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2014-07-11

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0813148995

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Many black soldiers serving in the U.S. Army during World War II hoped that they might make permanent gains as a result of their military service and their willingness to defend their country. They were soon disabused of such illusions. Taps for a Jim Crow Army is a powerful collection of letters written by black soldiers in the 1940s to various government and nongovernment officials. The soldiers expressed their disillusionment, rage, and anguish over the discrimination and segregation they experienced in the Army. Most black troops were denied entry into army specialist schools; black officers were not allowed to command white officers; black soldiers were served poorer food and were forced to ride Jim Crow military buses into town and to sit in Jim Crow base movie theaters. In the South, German POWs could use the same latrines as white American soldiers, but blacks could not. The original foreword by Benjamin Quarles, professor emeritus of history at Morgan State University, and a new foreword by Bernard C. Nalty, the chief historian in the Office of Air Force History, offer rich insights into the world of these soldiers.