This historical survey of Quakers in the United States and their responses to war from World War I through the Vietnam conflict demonstrates that Quakers' responses to war resulted from internal struggles and the influence of the state.

This historical survey of Quakers in the United States examines their responses to war during World War I, World War II, and the early Cold War, including the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, with particular focus on the social, political, legal, and theological aspects of the Quaker peace testimony. Quakers responded to these conflicts in a variety of ways, ranging from pacifism to support for military action. The boundaries and constraints of Quaker beliefs about violent conflict and the meaning of the peace testimony were determined by debates within the Religious Society of Friends. Isaac Barnes May asserts that Quakers' reactions to war in the twentieth-century should also be understood as closely related to Quakerism's relationship to state power. The choice to accommodate or resist government pressure worked alongside internal forces to shape Quakerism in the United States. Ultimately, May argues that there is no single pattern of Quaker response to modern war.

This book introduces readers to the life, thought, social activism and political conflicts of the Quaker intellectual and peace activist Henry Cadbury (1883-1974). Born into an established Orthodox Philadelphia Quaker family, Cadbury was among the most prominent Quaker intellectuals of his day. During his lifetime, he was well known as a contributor to one of the most important English translations of the Bible (the Revised Standard Version) and wrote scores of articles and books on the early history of Christianity and the history of the Society of Friends. He also had enormous influence over what may be the single best institutional instantiation of the Quaker commitment to nonviolence—the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), an organization Cadbury helped to found in 1917 and served throughout his long lifetime. When the AFSC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947, Cadbury was asked to accept the prize on its behalf.

American Military History provides the United States Army-in particular, its young officers, NCOs, and cadets-with a comprehensive but brief account of its past. The Center of Military History first published this work in 1956 as a textbook for senior ROTC courses. Since then it has gone through a number of updates and revisions, but the primary intent has remained the same. Support for military history education has always been a principal mission of the Center, and this new edition of an invaluable history furthers that purpose. The history of an active organization tends to expand rapidly as the organization grows larger and more complex. The period since the Vietnam War, at which point the most recent edition ended, has been a significant one for the Army, a busy period of expanding roles and missions and of fundamental organizational changes. In particular, the explosion of missions and deployments since 11 September 2001 has necessitated the creation of additional, open-ended chapters in the story of the U.S. Army in action. This first volume covers the Army's history from its birth in 1775 to the eve of World War I. By 1917, the United States was already a world power. The Army had sent large expeditionary forces beyond the American hemisphere, and at the beginning of the new century Secretary of War Elihu Root had proposed changes and reforms that within a generation would shape the Army of the future. But world war-global war-was still to come. The second volume of this new edition will take up that story and extend it into the twenty-first century and the early years of the war on terrorism and includes an analysis of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq up to January 2009.

This book investigates the historical context, meaning, and expression of early Quaker pacifism in England and its colonies. Weddle focuses primarily on one historical moment--King Philip's War, which broke out in 1675 between English settlers and Indians in New England. Among the settlers were Quakers, adherents of the movement that had gathered by 1652 out of the religious and social turmoil of the English Civil War. King Philip's War confronted the New England Quakers with the practical need to define the parameters of their peace testimony --to test their principles and to choose how they would respond to violence. The Quaker governors of Rhode Island, for example, had to reconcile their beliefs with the need to provide for the common defense. Others had to reconcile their peace principles with such concerns as seeking refuge in garrisons, collecting taxes for war, carrying guns for self-defense as they worked in the fields, and serving in the militia. Indeed, Weddle has uncovered records of many Quakers engaged in or abetting acts of violence, thus debunking the traditional historiography of Quakers as saintly pacifists. Weddle shows that Quaker pacifism existed as a doctrinal position before the 1660 crackdown on religious sectarians, but that it was a radical theological position rather than a pragmatic strategy. She thus convincingly refutes the Marxist argument that Quakers acted from economic and political, and not religious motives. She examines in detail how the Quakers' theology worked--how, for example, their interpretation of certain biblical passages affected their politics--and traces the evolution of the concept of pacifism from a doctrine that was essentially about protecting the state of one's own soul to one concerned with the consequences of violence to other human beings.

A Companion to the First World War brings together an international team of distinguished historians who provide a series of original and thought-provoking essays on one of the most devastating events in modern history. Comprises 38 essays by leading scholars who analyze the current state of historical scholarship on the First World War Provides extensive coverage spanning the pre-war period, the military conflict, social, economic, political, and cultural developments, and the war's legacy Offers original perspectives on themes as diverse as strategy and tactics, war crimes, science and technology, and the arts Selected as a 2011 Outstanding Academic Title by CHOICE