Russell P. Strange "Book of the Year" Award from the Illinois State Historical Society, 2012. On the eve of the War of 1812, the Illinois Territory was a new land of bright promise. Split off from Indiana Territory in 1809, the new territory ran from the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers north to the U.S. border with Canada, embracing the current states of Illinois, Wisconsin, and a part of Michigan. The extreme southern part of the region was rich in timber, but the dominant feature of the landscape was the vast tall grass prairie that stretched without major interruption from Lake Michigan for more than three hundred miles to the south. The territory was largely inhabited by Indians: Sauk, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, and others. By 1812, however, pioneer farmers had gathered in the wooded fringes around prime agricultural land, looking out over the prairies with longing and trepidation. Six years later, a populous Illinois was confident enough to seek and receive admission as a state in the Union. What had intervened was the War of 1812, in which white settlers faced both Indians resistant to their encroachments and British forces poised to seize control of the upper Mississippi and Great Lakes. The war ultimately broke the power and morale of the Indian tribes and deprived them of the support of their ally, Great Britain. Sometimes led by skillful tacticians, at other times by blundering looters who got lost in the tall grass, the combatants showed each other little mercy. Until and even after the war was concluded by the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, there were massacres by both sides, laying the groundwork for later betrayal of friendly and hostile tribes alike and for ultimate expulsion of the Indians from the new state of Illinois. In this engrossing new history, published upon the war's bicentennial, Gillum Ferguson underlines the crucial importance of the War of 1812 in the development of Illinois as a state. The history of Illinois in the War of 1812 has never before been told with so much attention to the personalities who fought it, the events that defined it, and its lasting consequences. Endorsed by the Illinois Society of the War of 1812 and the Illinois War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission.

When H. Byron Earhart’s father enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1942, young Byron and his family moved into his grandparents' old-fashioned home with a coal-fired range and potbelly stove, and his mother took charge of the family business, a frozen food locker. Grandma was the undisputed head of the family. While his father served on the battleship USS Missouri, his grandparents and mother held the family and the business together. At Grandma’s House is a tribute to everyday Americans who provided the social glue for a country at war as they balanced fear and anxiety for loved ones with the challenges and pleasures of daily life. The experiences of the Earhart family and this Midwestern community, supplemented by contemporary documents, family photos, and professional illustrations, recount with vivid local color the drama that played out on the national and international stage.

First World War-based ex-servicemen’s organisations found themselves facing an existential crisis with the onset of the Second World War. This book examines how two such groups, the British and American Legions, adapted cognitively to the emergence of yet another world war and its veterans in the years 1938 through 1946. With collective identities and socio-political programmes based in First World War memory, both Legions renegotiated existing narratives of that war and the lessons they derived from those narratives as they responded to the unfolding Second World War in real time. Using the previous war as a "learning experience" for the new one privileged certain understandings of that conflict over others, inflecting its meaning for each Legion moving forward. Breaking the Second World War down into its constituent events to trace the evolution of First World War memory through everyday invocations, this unprecedented comparison of the British and American Legions illuminates the ways in which differing international, national, and organisational contexts intersected to shape this process as well as the common factors affecting it in both groups. The book will appeal most to researchers of the ex-service movement, First World War memory, and the cultural history of the Second World War.

EDUCATING ABOUT SOCIAL ISSUES IN THE 20th and 21st Centuries: A Critical Annotated Bibliography, Volume 3 is the third volume in a series that addresses an eclectic host of issues germane to teaching and learning about social issues at the secondary level of schooling, ranging over roughly a one hundred year period (between 1915 and 2013). Volume 3 specifically addresses how an examination of social issues can be incorporated into the extant curriculum. Experts in various areas each contribute a chapter in the book. Each chapter is comprised of a critical essay and an annotated bibliography of key works germane to the specific focus of the chapter.

In the waning days of World War II, a little-known battle took place under the frozen seas off the coast of Norway . . . and changed the course of the war. In February of 1944, Germany and Japan devised a desperate plan to escape defeat. The Germans would send Japan a submarine—boat U-864—packed with their most advanced rocket and jet aircraft technology. Japan could then reestablish air superiority in the Pacific, drawing the attention of Allied forces long enough for Germany to regroup. Meanwhile, British code breakers, working with the Norwegian underground, had discovered the plan. But even though they were unable to stop the submarine from embarking, the British submarine HMS Venturer was waiting for it at sea. In a cat-and-mouse battle beneath the waves, they hunted one another, each waiting to strike. The Venturer won the game, becoming the only submarine in history to sink another sub in underwater combat. This is the dramatic, action-packed account of one of the greatest unsung victories in military history, and of a historical moment in the annals of naval warfare.

An encyclopedia designed especially to meet the needs of elementary, junior high, and senior high school students.

American women did more than pursue roles as soldiers, doctors, and nurses during World War I. Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War reveals women's motivations for fighting for full citizenship rights both on and off the battlefield. The war provided chances for women to participate in the military, but also in other male-dominated career paths. Intense discussions of rape, methods of protecting women, and proper gender roles abound as Kimberly Jensen draws from rich case studies to show how female thinkers and activists wove wartime choices into long-standing debates about woman suffrage and economic parity. The war created new urgency in these debates, and Jensen forcefully presents the case of women participants and activists: women's involvement in the obligation of citizens to defend the state validated their right of full female citizenship.