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Lester D. Langley

Bio: Lester D. Langley is an academic researcher from University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh. The author has contributed to research in topics: Archaeology of the Americas & History of the United States. The author has an hindex of 9, co-authored 18 publications receiving 379 citations.

Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A comparative history of three revolutions in the Americas is provided by as mentioned in this paper, including the American Revolution in 1776, the 1791 slave revolt in the French colony that became Haiti, and the prolonged Spanish American struggle for independence that ended 50 years later.
Abstract: A comparative history of three revolutions in the Americas is provided by this work: the American Revolution in 1776; the 1791 slave revolt in the French colony that became Haiti; and the prolonged Spanish American struggle for independence that ended 50 years later.

53 citations

Book
27 Nov 1996
TL;DR: A comparative history of three revolutions in the Americas is provided by as mentioned in this paper, including the American Revolution in 1776, the 1791 slave revolt in the French colony that became Haiti, and the prolonged Spanish American struggle for independence that ended 50 years later.
Abstract: A comparative history of three revolutions in the Americas is provided by this work: the American Revolution in 1776; the 1791 slave revolt in the French colony that became Haiti; and the prolonged Spanish American struggle for independence that ended 50 years later.

47 citations

Book
01 Jan 2002
TL;DR: Part 1 I The Cuban Experience Chapter 2 Leonard Wood and the White Man's Burden Chapter 3 TR and the Use of Force Chapter 4 The Second Cuban Intervention, 1906 Chapter 5 Cuba Occupied Part 6 II Teach them to Elect Good Men Chapter 7 The Nicaraguan Menace Chapter 8 The Nicaragua War, 1910-1912 Chapter 9 The Mexican Crisis Chapter 10 Veracruz Chapter 11 The Rulers of Veracrusz Part 12 III Civilizing the Tropics Chapter 13 Turbulent Hispaniola Chapter 14 The Pacification of Hispaniola: 1 Chapter 15 The Pac
Abstract: Part 1 I The Cuban Experience Chapter 2 Leonard Wood and the White Man's Burden Chapter 3 TR and the Use of Force Chapter 4 The Second Cuban Intervention, 1906 Chapter 5 Cuba Occupied Part 6 II Teach them to Elect Good Men Chapter 7 The Nicaraguan Menace Chapter 8 The Nicaraguan War, 1910-1912 Chapter 9 The Mexican Crisis Chapter 10 Veracruz Chapter 11 The Rulers of Veracruz Part 12 III Civilizing the Tropics Chapter 13 Turbulent Hispaniola Chapter 14 The Pacification of Hispaniola: 1 Chapter 15 The Pacification of Hispaniola: 2 Part 16 IV The Last Banana War Chapter 17 Interregnum, 1921-1925 Chapter 18 The Second Nicaraguan Civil War, 1925-1927 Chapter 19 The Sandino Chase Chapter 20 The Last Banana War

41 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In "America and the Americas" as mentioned in this paper, Langley moves from the colonial era into the Reagan administration to provide an accessible, interpretive introduction to the history of United States relations with Latin America and the Caribbean.
Abstract: "America is a hemisphere to itself."--Thomas Jefferson"As to an American system, we have it; we constitute the whole of it; there is no community of interests or of principles between North and South America."--John Quincy AdamsFrom its inception as the first democratic nation of the New World, the United States has envisioned, in the words of Jefferson, "a hemisphere to itself," united in the values and structures of republican government. At the same time, global political realities and economic ambitions as well as cultural dissimilarities have prompted many to assert, like Adams, that America is and ought to remain distinct.In "America and the Americas" Lester D. Langley moves from the colonial era into the Reagan administration to provide an accessible, interpretive introduction to the history of United States relations with Latin America and the Caribbean. Discussing the formal structures and diplomatic postures underlying United States policy making, Langley examines as well the political, economic, and cultural currents that often have frustrated inter-American progress and accord. Langley cites the distinction, always clear below the Rio Grande, between the hemispheric dreams of America and the national interests of the United States. Drawn together in the text of the Monroe Doctrine, the twin motives of Anglo-Saxon America have shifted weight and changed interpretation through the course of history, engendering in Latin Americans responses ranging from respect and admiration to suspicion and contempt. Also frustrating to American policies, Langley shows, is the reality of Latin America, of a people whose values rest in the social rather than the political order, in spiritualism rather than materialism, whose hopes lie more in the equality of Pan Americanism than in the hemispheric strategy of the United States.In the later decades of the twentieth century, the 2,000-mile border that separates the United States from the countries to the south has been a barrier between First and Third worlds, between cultures, and in many cases between economic philosophies and political policies. The inaugural work in a series dealing with relations between the United States and its neighbors, "America and the Americas" introduces the forces and issues that have shaped the interaction among individual nations across the boundaries of north and south.

41 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Elliott as mentioned in this paper compares the empires built by Spain and Britain in the Americas, from Columbus's arrival in the New World to the end of Spanish colonial rule in the early nineteenth century.
Abstract: This epic history compares the empires built by Spain and Britain in the Americas, from Columbus's arrival in the New World to the end of Spanish colonial rule in the early nineteenth century. J. H. Elliott, one of the most distinguished and versatile historians working today, offers us history on a grand scale, contrasting the worlds built by Britain and by Spain on the ruins of the civilizations they encountered and destroyed in North and South America. Elliott identifies and explains both the similarities and differences in the two empires' processes of colonization, the character of their colonial societies, their distinctive styles of imperial government, and the independence movements mounted against them. Based on wide reading in the history of the two great Atlantic civilizations, the book sets the Spanish and British colonial empires in the context of their own times and offers us insights into aspects of this dual history that still influence the Americas.

440 citations

01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: Hahn et al. as mentioned in this paper traced the triumph of free labor in the two largest slave societies of the nineteenth-century western world: the United States and Brazil, and concluded that free labor had strengthened capitalism in Brazil and United States, making American industrialists and Brazilian planters more powerful than ever before.
Abstract: This dissertation traces the triumph of free labor in the two largest slave societies of the nineteenth-century western world: the United States and Brazil. Drawing on a range of primary sources from American and Brazilian archives, it reconstructs the intense circulation of transnational agents between these two countries from the 1840s to the 1880s. It shows how these exchanges transformed the political economies of both nations: whereas Brazil attracted American capital and expertise to modernize its economic structure and accomplish a smooth transition from slave to free labor; the United States seized the opportunity to invest, develop, and encourage free labor in Brazil, which had long been under the influence of the British Empire. As vital as chattel slavery had become to the nineteenth-century world economy, a coalition of American and Brazilian reformers proposed that an even more efficient and profitable labor system could replace it. This transnational group of free labor promoters included activists, diplomats, engineers, entrepreneurs, journalists, merchants, missionaries, planters, politicians, scientists, students, among others. Working together, they promoted labor-saving machinery, new transportation technology, scientific management, and technical education. These improvements, they reckoned, would help Brazilian and American capitalists harness the potential of native-born as well as immigrant free workers to expand production and trade. This work concludes that, by the late nineteenth century, free labor had strengthened capitalism in Brazil and the United States, making American industrialists and Brazilian planters more powerful than ever before. Consequently, in neither the United States nor Brazil did the triumph of free labor result in the advancement of social justice. In fact, from the very beginning of their campaign, free labor promoters favored major capitalists: their goal was to concentrate capital, shatter traditional ways of life, and control highly mobile workers. Free labor meant eliminating slavery while, at the same time, reinforcing proletarianization. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group History First Advisor Steven Hahn

116 citations

Book
28 Nov 2003
TL;DR: Schoonover's "Uncle Sam's War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization" as mentioned in this paper examines U.S. growth from its early nationhood to its first major military conflict on the world stage, also known as the Spanish-American War.
Abstract: The roots of American globalization can be found in the War of 1898. Then, as today, the United States actively engaged in globalizing its economic order, itspolitical institutions, and its values. Thomas Schoonover argues that this drive to expand political and cultural reach -- the quest for wealth, missionary fulfillment, security, power, and prestige -- was inherited by the United States from Europe, especially Spain and Great Britain. "Uncle Sam's War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization" is a pathbreaking work of history that examines U.S. growth from its early nationhood to its first major military conflict on the world stage, also known as the Spanish-American War. As the new nation's military, industrial, and economic strength developed, the United States created policies designed to protect itself from challenges beyond its borders. According to Schoonover, a surge in U.S. activity in the Gulf-Caribbean and in Central America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was catalyzed by the same avarice and competitiveness that motivated the European adventurers to seek a route to Asia centuries earlier. Addressing the basic chronology and themes of the first century of the nation's expansion, Schoonover locates the origins of the U.S. goal of globalization. U.S. involvement in the War of 1898 reflects many of the fundamental patterns in our national history -- exploration and discovery, labor exploitation, violence, racism, class conflict, and concern for security -- that many believe shaped America's course in the twentieth and twenty-first century.

104 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that military culture is a specific form of institutional culture and that viewing armies from this perspective offers new insight into how they functioned and the nature of their interaction with state and society.
Abstract: This article outlines a conceptual framework to analyse the norms and values influencing the behaviour of soldiers in the past. It will argue that military culture is a specific form of institutional culture and that viewing armies from this perspective offers new insight into how they functioned and the nature of their interaction with state and society. It also addresses definitions of militarism, arguing that these generally blur distinctions between cultural and material fac- tors. By disassociating military culture from particular forms of rule or modes of production, it can be studied in societies where it has been forgotten or hidden in the historical memory.

99 citations