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Cynthia Ross

Texas A&M University - Commerce, History, Faculty Member

Washington State University, History, Alumna

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Cynthia Ross is the Editor for World History Connected and an Assistant Professor of History at Texas A&M University - Commerce near Dallas, Texas. She earned her doctoral degree from Washington State University in 2011, with specializations in World History, War and Society, Environmental History, Food History, and American Empire. She has extensive experience teaching World History, U.S. History from a global perspective, historiography and theory, and courses in her specializations to diverse student populations including undergraduate, graduate, dual credit, first generation university students, and active adult learners. She holds numerous research awards including the Global Human Rights Fellowship and is a Global Fellow at her university. She is a lifetime member of the World History Association, the Program Chair for the WHA Annual Conference, the Organizer for the World History Association of Texas Annual Conference – North Texas, and a tireless advocate of world history research and teaching. Her most recent publication “Dinner in the Trenches: Army Rations, Rolling Kitchens, and the Logistics of Food for American Doughboys” is in Mandy Link and Matthew Stith, Eds., Beyond No Man’s Land: New Perspectives of the First World War (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). She has also published in World History Connected, World History Bulletin, The Middle Ground Journal, Agricultural History, and The Journal of South Texas. Her two current monograph projects focus on the role of botanists in creating militarized landscapes in the Pacific and a history of Texas wine.

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Papers by Cynthia Ross

Jesuit Missionaries as Agents of Empire: The Spanish-Chamorro War and Ecological Effects of Conversion on Guam, 1668-1769

World History Connected, 2013

The Banana Business: Tracing the Contours of a Tropical Fruit Commodity in World History

World History Bulletin, 2019

The essay below is written with a general audience in mind and works well for educators who are l... more The essay below is written with a general audience in mind and works well for educators who are looking to revise lesson plans and lecture materials with new content. In particular, the author notes content that can be used in world history survey classes, global environmental history classes, and in U.S. History survey courses that discuss vertical integration.

Ecological Imperialism in an Occupied Landscape: Tangantangan and the Tropical Forest

World History Connected, 2021

Turkeys Away: Christmas Dinner, Mock Turtle Soup, and Using Food History to Teach World War I

World History Bulletin, 2023

have provided us with indispensable texts for the classroom, either as nreparatory material or as... more have provided us with indispensable texts for the classroom, either as nreparatory material or as student reading assignments. Classes on transatlantic history, the Columbian Exchange, and cross-culhural diffusion benefit greatly from incorporating material from Candice Goucher's. Congotay! Congotay! A Global History ef Caribbean Fod² Erik Gilbert and Jonathan Reynolds have provided us with a student accessible text exploring the historical importance of salt, sugar, and spices (with silk being the featured non-food item) as globally traded foodstuffs in, Trading Tastes: Commodity and CHltural Exchange Since 1750. Jeffrey Pilcher's Food in World History, along with his work on identity and food in Latin America and the global reach of the humble taco have all become staples in world, Latin American, and food history courses. In addition to guest editing the 2008 World History Balletin issue and providing a masterful historiography in The Food Issue" of World History Connected, Rick Warner is also a former professional chef wvho regularly has an experiential cooking component in his undergraduate courses at Wabash College. This issue, focused on "Food and World History" appears at a time when the historical discipline no longer questions rigorous scholarship in food studies but welcomes it. Any definitive historiography of food history written today would include Sidney Mintz's ground-brcaking, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in MModern History to one of the most recent monographs on taste, Malcolm Purinton's Globalization in a Glass: Tbe Rise of Pilsner Beer throngb Tecbnology, Taste and Enpir. Indeed, there are perhaps hundreds of books and articles dedicated to food as it relates to commodities, culture, economies, gender, health, labor, mobilities, race, and ethnicity. The interdisciplinary series, California Studies in Food and Culture, alone includes 57 titles, all published since 2002.$ The history of taste, in particular, is a burgeoning area Or study with outs tanding works on such wide-ranging Oplcs as spices, colonial America, Britain's quest tor empire, and the relationship between place and taste. A Series of brief but inmminently useful articles published by 45

“Bringing the World to a Small Texas Town: Teaching World History to Rural and Underserved Populations"

World History Connected, 2023

Bringing the World to a Small Texas Town: Teaching World History at a Rural-Serving University W ... more Bringing the World to a Small Texas Town: Teaching World History at a Rural-Serving University W orld history as a teaching field has matured to the point that, rather than asking 'Should we teach world history?,' we now ask questions that assume its validity and necessity are a given. This forum joins dozens of articles published over the last three decades that tackle teaching philosophies employed in the world history classroom. A small sampling of those articles includes Gilbert Allardyce's work published in the very first issue of the Journal of World History, a forum on Training Teachers of World History in Perspectives on History, as well as a collection of guestedited essays on Teaching World History from the German Historical Institute here in World History Connected, and more. Here, we offer a variety of responses to the 1 question, 'Why do we teach world history?,' some philosophical and others practical. For my part, I would like to reflect from my perspective as a world historian teaching at a small public research university in rural northeast Texas, which may resonate with other educators in rural-serving institutions. I will first give a brief description of our university community, student demographics, and issues of concern to them upon graduation that show areas sometimes pejoratively referred to as 'fly-over country' are actually more vibrant and globally connected than may be apparent on the surface. I will then explore the place of world history when it exists outside of the core curriculum and the potential for world history education in Texas. Ultimately, I posit that offering robust world history education to students in rural areas can help teachers in training be more inclusive and less Eurocentric in their historical understanding, with the potential to transform instruction in even the smallest school districts. As world historians, we can provide a relevant historical experience for an often overlooked diverse student body, and inspire students to seek an authentic collective identity that transcends regionalism or nationalism. Perhaps most

“Dinner in the Trenches: Army Rations, Rolling Kitchens, and the Logistics of Food for American Doughboys”

Beyond No Man’s Land: New Perspectives of the First World War, 2024

Review of Nature at War: American Environments and World War II

Agricultural History, Aug 1, 2022

Before the blaze, the spark: the nature of armed resistance and its motivations in World War II

One of the often-overlooked areas in the otherwise vibrant field of World War II historical resea... more One of the often-overlooked areas in the otherwise vibrant field of World War II historical research is the study of motivations of resistance groups that formed throughout the world in response to occupation by the primary Axis powers-Germany, Italy, and Japan. In response, millions of civilians worldwide took up arms in anti-Axis resistance. Indeed, the harshness and intrusive quality of the Axis occupation, carried out to achieve dominance and control, worked against the occupation forces by creating a sea of opposition. Since resistance occurred in all occupied countries, encompassing a diverse political, religious, social, and cultural community the question arises, did this widely varying group of people all choose resistance based on common motivations that cut across all differences? In examining this topic, this paper approaches anti-Axis resistance motivations from a world history perspective through selection of four case study countries-France, Yugoslavia, Burma, and the Philippines. One key to resistance was the amount of coercive or aggressive force used by the occupation to exert control, termed here as intensity of occupation; meaning, the higher the intensity, the more likely resistance was to occur. Yet if motivations related only to the intensity of occupation, resistance would be a variable as the occupation itself. Thus, while intensity of v occupation is part of the key to understanding resistance motivations, other, more fundamental themes also play important roles. Therefore, this paper argues that resisters made their choices based on concepts of human dignity and identity that the experience of occupation sharpened. Severe attacks on these shared and possibly universal concepts, at the individual and collective level, created a sustained resistance response. Indeed, although intensity is important, repeated attacks on dignity and identity are the very foundation of all resistance motivations. In an ever-expanding world of global connections and human interaction, the study of resistance from a world history perspective is critical. For that reason, this study rests on the assumption that a comparative and thematic study of resistance as a worldwide phenomenon is the most fruitful approach rather than reliance on a narrow national perspective that might obscure its global significance. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS

Linda Civitello. The Baking Powder Wars: The Cutthroat Food Fight That Revolutionized Cooking. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2017. 272 pp. ISBN-13 978-0-252-04108-2, $95.00 (cloth); 978-0-252-08259-7, $19.95 (paper)

Enterprise & Society, 2018

Jesuit Missionaries as Agents of Empire: The Spanish-Chamorro War and Ecological Effects of Conversion on Guam, 1668-1769: Tables

GUAM: AT THE CROSSROADS OF SPANISH IMPERIAL MILITARIZATION, ECOLOGICAL CHANGE, AND IDENTITY IN WORLD HISTORY

This dissertation argues that globalization during the Spanish imperial period (1521-1898) largel... more This dissertation argues that globalization during the Spanish imperial period (1521-1898) largely produced the Guamanian identity. Militarization to safeguard Spain’s global trade route across the Pacific led to ecological changes including introduced populations, plants, animals, diseases, and landscape changes associated with Catholicization that blended with the original Chamorro culture. This resulted in a hybrid identity that long outlasted the Spanish regime. A world history focus on connections and exchanges offers a unique lens with which to view this remaking of an identity as reflected in Guam’s landscape change. Beginning with Guam’s ecological history prior to European contact illustrates ancient settlement significantly altered Guam’s ecology from its ‘natural’ state long before Spanish arrival. Guam’s importance as the way station along the Manila Galleon route dictated the inevitable militarization of the ‘built’ environment through garrison construction and infrastructure expansion. Additionally, reducción policies to force Catholic conversion, including concentrating people in church-centered villages also dramatically altered the urban landscapes. Agaña became the colonial capital with Spanish-style buildings and wide avenues, reflecting European aesthetics of order and ‘civilization.’ Anthropogenic introductions figure prominently in this dissertation. Agents of the empire fundamentally changed Guam’s ecology by importing desired species to create imperialized environments for comfort, profit, and aesthetics. For example, the Spanish introduced tangantangan (Leucaena leucocephala) in the late seventeenth century as fodder for imported cattle brought in to feed the garrison. Within a few decades, the tropical American tree formed dense thickets across the island. Tangantangan naturalized by the nineteenth century and is now an invasive species. The introduction of tangantangan was only one part of a larger ecological imperialism project, with a host of global implications. Exploring the expansion of Spanish imperial militarization leads to a better understanding of its effects on indigenous identities and ecologies, a crucial part of developing world history. Indeed, the ecological, military, and identity experience of Guam is illustrative of similar processes across all European empires and American imperial ventures. These include biological exchanges, negotiated and contested local relationships with foreign military presences, and the legacies of hybrid identities that continued shaping local histories long after the imperialists left.

Book Reviews by Cynthia Ross

Review. The San Saba Treasure: Legends of Silver Creek by David C. Lewis

The Journal of South Texas, 2020

Review. War at Sea: A Shipwrecked History from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century, by James P. Delgado

World History Connected, 2020

Gazing out over Pearl Harbor in Hawaii or Chuuk (Truk) Lagoon in the Federated States of Micrones... more Gazing out over Pearl Harbor in Hawaii or Chuuk (Truk) Lagoon in the Federated States of Micronesia, one gets the sense that shipwrecks are graveyards and memorials. They are both a final resting place for those who sacrificed their lives and a site of mourning and remembrance for the living. Yet, these underwater memorials are often distant from the communities who lost their loved ones and physically inaccessible to most people who lack diving expertise. Some shipwreck sites are so ancient that there is little to record their location and what happened there, making memorialization difficult. That remoteness of place and memory can cause people to mythologize a shipwreck site, such as that at Actium or Tsushima. James P. Delgado has spent four decades engaged in maritime archaeology and history, working for the National Park Service, the Vancouver Maritime Museum, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, SEARCH, Inc.; teaching at multiple universities; authoring, coauthoring, or editing almost three dozen books, hundreds of articles; and hosting National Geographic's The Sea Hunters. During his time at the National Park Service, he began diving wrecks (to date, over 100) in efforts to understand what life at sea meant for the sailors aboard these vessels. Delgado includes many of those dives in this book to focus attention on the human element in maritime archaeology.

Review. Approaching Recent World History Through Film: Context, Analysis, and Research, by Scott C. M. Bailey

The Middle Ground Journal, 2023

Visual media inundates our world every day with moving images, ranging from series, feature films... more Visual media inundates our world every day with moving images, ranging from series, feature films, and documentaries, to a few short seconds of TikTok or YouTube videos, making it one of the most prevalent ways people receive entertainment and information. Educators at all academic levels are often on the hunt for films to use in class on topics, searching for ways to make the historical importance of particular events even more poignant for students. Upon initial review of Scott C. M. Bailey's Approaching Recent World History Through Film: Context, Analysis, and Research, it is clearly evident this is a welcome pedagogical tool for teachers in the world history classroom because of the work the author does to analyze and contextualize the historical content of films. This book is far more versatile than that, however, as Bailey has also set out to provide an invaluable guide on how to use films as historical sources in research projects by equipping scholars with the analytical foundation to incorporate visual media into historical research methods. Bailey is unequivocal in his conviction that using films as historical sources can help us come to a deeper understanding about the history of the long twentieth century (from the late nineteenth through early twenty-first centuries). Visual media can be a powerful way to engage students and provide a better understanding of historical events, societies, and cultures. This is especially true of foreign films, which can offer unique and often unfamiliar perspectives that enable students to explore societies and cultures much different from their own. Indeed, films can help students understand that history is not a single, universal narrative but rather, different interpretations can depend on the time, place, and perspective of the filmmaker. For instance, the Japanese anime film Grave of the Fireflies (1988) can provide students with a Japanese civilian point of view on the atomic bombing carried out by the United States in 1945. Films can also serve as a medium to explore historical events in an accessible and engaging narrative structure students may find more appealing than a textbook. Examples abound, from All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, 1979, 2022) as an example of the brutality and futility of the Great War to Cuba and the Cameraman (2017) that uses the director's collected footage to examine the effects of forty years of Fidel Castro's rule on the lives of everyday citizens. Instructors using films can foster critical thinking skills by comparing a film's depiction of events such as those in Dunkirk (2017) with textual primary and secondary sources, and encouraging students to consider such issues as bias, perspective, historical accuracy, and fact and fiction in historical films. Bailey's book is a vital resource in engaging students in this way. Two key elements make the book particularly strong in its practical applicability: its global focus apparent in the selection of the films and its organization. An introduction defines important terms, discusses world historical interpretation, and identifies several of the conventions and assumptions that go along with different types of world history films. Delving further into analysis, Bailey also explores how to identify arguments in historical films and how to analyze their historical content and context. The conclusion provides ideas on incorporating films into historical

Review of Nature at War: American Environments and World War II, Edited by Thomas Robertson, Richard P. Tucker, Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Peter Mansoor

Agricultural History, 2022

Hall, Mitchell. The Vietnam War (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2000). 136 pp, $18.60.

Adas, Michael. Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989). 430 pp, $29.95.

Jesuit Missionaries as Agents of Empire: The Spanish-Chamorro War and Ecological Effects of Conversion on Guam, 1668-1769

World History Connected, 2013

The Banana Business: Tracing the Contours of a Tropical Fruit Commodity in World History

World History Bulletin, 2019

The essay below is written with a general audience in mind and works well for educators who are l... more The essay below is written with a general audience in mind and works well for educators who are looking to revise lesson plans and lecture materials with new content. In particular, the author notes content that can be used in world history survey classes, global environmental history classes, and in U.S. History survey courses that discuss vertical integration.

Ecological Imperialism in an Occupied Landscape: Tangantangan and the Tropical Forest

World History Connected, 2021

Turkeys Away: Christmas Dinner, Mock Turtle Soup, and Using Food History to Teach World War I

World History Bulletin, 2023

have provided us with indispensable texts for the classroom, either as nreparatory material or as... more have provided us with indispensable texts for the classroom, either as nreparatory material or as student reading assignments. Classes on transatlantic history, the Columbian Exchange, and cross-culhural diffusion benefit greatly from incorporating material from Candice Goucher's. Congotay! Congotay! A Global History ef Caribbean Fod² Erik Gilbert and Jonathan Reynolds have provided us with a student accessible text exploring the historical importance of salt, sugar, and spices (with silk being the featured non-food item) as globally traded foodstuffs in, Trading Tastes: Commodity and CHltural Exchange Since 1750. Jeffrey Pilcher's Food in World History, along with his work on identity and food in Latin America and the global reach of the humble taco have all become staples in world, Latin American, and food history courses. In addition to guest editing the 2008 World History Balletin issue and providing a masterful historiography in The Food Issue" of World History Connected, Rick Warner is also a former professional chef wvho regularly has an experiential cooking component in his undergraduate courses at Wabash College. This issue, focused on "Food and World History" appears at a time when the historical discipline no longer questions rigorous scholarship in food studies but welcomes it. Any definitive historiography of food history written today would include Sidney Mintz's ground-brcaking, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in MModern History to one of the most recent monographs on taste, Malcolm Purinton's Globalization in a Glass: Tbe Rise of Pilsner Beer throngb Tecbnology, Taste and Enpir. Indeed, there are perhaps hundreds of books and articles dedicated to food as it relates to commodities, culture, economies, gender, health, labor, mobilities, race, and ethnicity. The interdisciplinary series, California Studies in Food and Culture, alone includes 57 titles, all published since 2002.$ The history of taste, in particular, is a burgeoning area Or study with outs tanding works on such wide-ranging Oplcs as spices, colonial America, Britain's quest tor empire, and the relationship between place and taste. A Series of brief but inmminently useful articles published by 45

“Bringing the World to a Small Texas Town: Teaching World History to Rural and Underserved Populations"

World History Connected, 2023

Bringing the World to a Small Texas Town: Teaching World History at a Rural-Serving University W ... more Bringing the World to a Small Texas Town: Teaching World History at a Rural-Serving University W orld history as a teaching field has matured to the point that, rather than asking 'Should we teach world history?,' we now ask questions that assume its validity and necessity are a given. This forum joins dozens of articles published over the last three decades that tackle teaching philosophies employed in the world history classroom. A small sampling of those articles includes Gilbert Allardyce's work published in the very first issue of the Journal of World History, a forum on Training Teachers of World History in Perspectives on History, as well as a collection of guestedited essays on Teaching World History from the German Historical Institute here in World History Connected, and more. Here, we offer a variety of responses to the 1 question, 'Why do we teach world history?,' some philosophical and others practical. For my part, I would like to reflect from my perspective as a world historian teaching at a small public research university in rural northeast Texas, which may resonate with other educators in rural-serving institutions. I will first give a brief description of our university community, student demographics, and issues of concern to them upon graduation that show areas sometimes pejoratively referred to as 'fly-over country' are actually more vibrant and globally connected than may be apparent on the surface. I will then explore the place of world history when it exists outside of the core curriculum and the potential for world history education in Texas. Ultimately, I posit that offering robust world history education to students in rural areas can help teachers in training be more inclusive and less Eurocentric in their historical understanding, with the potential to transform instruction in even the smallest school districts. As world historians, we can provide a relevant historical experience for an often overlooked diverse student body, and inspire students to seek an authentic collective identity that transcends regionalism or nationalism. Perhaps most

“Dinner in the Trenches: Army Rations, Rolling Kitchens, and the Logistics of Food for American Doughboys”

Beyond No Man’s Land: New Perspectives of the First World War, 2024

Review of Nature at War: American Environments and World War II

Agricultural History, Aug 1, 2022

Before the blaze, the spark: the nature of armed resistance and its motivations in World War II

One of the often-overlooked areas in the otherwise vibrant field of World War II historical resea... more One of the often-overlooked areas in the otherwise vibrant field of World War II historical research is the study of motivations of resistance groups that formed throughout the world in response to occupation by the primary Axis powers-Germany, Italy, and Japan. In response, millions of civilians worldwide took up arms in anti-Axis resistance. Indeed, the harshness and intrusive quality of the Axis occupation, carried out to achieve dominance and control, worked against the occupation forces by creating a sea of opposition. Since resistance occurred in all occupied countries, encompassing a diverse political, religious, social, and cultural community the question arises, did this widely varying group of people all choose resistance based on common motivations that cut across all differences? In examining this topic, this paper approaches anti-Axis resistance motivations from a world history perspective through selection of four case study countries-France, Yugoslavia, Burma, and the Philippines. One key to resistance was the amount of coercive or aggressive force used by the occupation to exert control, termed here as intensity of occupation; meaning, the higher the intensity, the more likely resistance was to occur. Yet if motivations related only to the intensity of occupation, resistance would be a variable as the occupation itself. Thus, while intensity of v occupation is part of the key to understanding resistance motivations, other, more fundamental themes also play important roles. Therefore, this paper argues that resisters made their choices based on concepts of human dignity and identity that the experience of occupation sharpened. Severe attacks on these shared and possibly universal concepts, at the individual and collective level, created a sustained resistance response. Indeed, although intensity is important, repeated attacks on dignity and identity are the very foundation of all resistance motivations. In an ever-expanding world of global connections and human interaction, the study of resistance from a world history perspective is critical. For that reason, this study rests on the assumption that a comparative and thematic study of resistance as a worldwide phenomenon is the most fruitful approach rather than reliance on a narrow national perspective that might obscure its global significance. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS

Linda Civitello. The Baking Powder Wars: The Cutthroat Food Fight That Revolutionized Cooking. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2017. 272 pp. ISBN-13 978-0-252-04108-2, $95.00 (cloth); 978-0-252-08259-7, $19.95 (paper)

Enterprise & Society, 2018

Jesuit Missionaries as Agents of Empire: The Spanish-Chamorro War and Ecological Effects of Conversion on Guam, 1668-1769: Tables

GUAM: AT THE CROSSROADS OF SPANISH IMPERIAL MILITARIZATION, ECOLOGICAL CHANGE, AND IDENTITY IN WORLD HISTORY

This dissertation argues that globalization during the Spanish imperial period (1521-1898) largel... more This dissertation argues that globalization during the Spanish imperial period (1521-1898) largely produced the Guamanian identity. Militarization to safeguard Spain’s global trade route across the Pacific led to ecological changes including introduced populations, plants, animals, diseases, and landscape changes associated with Catholicization that blended with the original Chamorro culture. This resulted in a hybrid identity that long outlasted the Spanish regime. A world history focus on connections and exchanges offers a unique lens with which to view this remaking of an identity as reflected in Guam’s landscape change. Beginning with Guam’s ecological history prior to European contact illustrates ancient settlement significantly altered Guam’s ecology from its ‘natural’ state long before Spanish arrival. Guam’s importance as the way station along the Manila Galleon route dictated the inevitable militarization of the ‘built’ environment through garrison construction and infrastructure expansion. Additionally, reducción policies to force Catholic conversion, including concentrating people in church-centered villages also dramatically altered the urban landscapes. Agaña became the colonial capital with Spanish-style buildings and wide avenues, reflecting European aesthetics of order and ‘civilization.’ Anthropogenic introductions figure prominently in this dissertation. Agents of the empire fundamentally changed Guam’s ecology by importing desired species to create imperialized environments for comfort, profit, and aesthetics. For example, the Spanish introduced tangantangan (Leucaena leucocephala) in the late seventeenth century as fodder for imported cattle brought in to feed the garrison. Within a few decades, the tropical American tree formed dense thickets across the island. Tangantangan naturalized by the nineteenth century and is now an invasive species. The introduction of tangantangan was only one part of a larger ecological imperialism project, with a host of global implications. Exploring the expansion of Spanish imperial militarization leads to a better understanding of its effects on indigenous identities and ecologies, a crucial part of developing world history. Indeed, the ecological, military, and identity experience of Guam is illustrative of similar processes across all European empires and American imperial ventures. These include biological exchanges, negotiated and contested local relationships with foreign military presences, and the legacies of hybrid identities that continued shaping local histories long after the imperialists left.

Review. The San Saba Treasure: Legends of Silver Creek by David C. Lewis

The Journal of South Texas, 2020

Review. War at Sea: A Shipwrecked History from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century, by James P. Delgado

World History Connected, 2020

Gazing out over Pearl Harbor in Hawaii or Chuuk (Truk) Lagoon in the Federated States of Micrones... more Gazing out over Pearl Harbor in Hawaii or Chuuk (Truk) Lagoon in the Federated States of Micronesia, one gets the sense that shipwrecks are graveyards and memorials. They are both a final resting place for those who sacrificed their lives and a site of mourning and remembrance for the living. Yet, these underwater memorials are often distant from the communities who lost their loved ones and physically inaccessible to most people who lack diving expertise. Some shipwreck sites are so ancient that there is little to record their location and what happened there, making memorialization difficult. That remoteness of place and memory can cause people to mythologize a shipwreck site, such as that at Actium or Tsushima. James P. Delgado has spent four decades engaged in maritime archaeology and history, working for the National Park Service, the Vancouver Maritime Museum, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, SEARCH, Inc.; teaching at multiple universities; authoring, coauthoring, or editing almost three dozen books, hundreds of articles; and hosting National Geographic's The Sea Hunters. During his time at the National Park Service, he began diving wrecks (to date, over 100) in efforts to understand what life at sea meant for the sailors aboard these vessels. Delgado includes many of those dives in this book to focus attention on the human element in maritime archaeology.

Review. Approaching Recent World History Through Film: Context, Analysis, and Research, by Scott C. M. Bailey

The Middle Ground Journal, 2023

Visual media inundates our world every day with moving images, ranging from series, feature films... more Visual media inundates our world every day with moving images, ranging from series, feature films, and documentaries, to a few short seconds of TikTok or YouTube videos, making it one of the most prevalent ways people receive entertainment and information. Educators at all academic levels are often on the hunt for films to use in class on topics, searching for ways to make the historical importance of particular events even more poignant for students. Upon initial review of Scott C. M. Bailey's Approaching Recent World History Through Film: Context, Analysis, and Research, it is clearly evident this is a welcome pedagogical tool for teachers in the world history classroom because of the work the author does to analyze and contextualize the historical content of films. This book is far more versatile than that, however, as Bailey has also set out to provide an invaluable guide on how to use films as historical sources in research projects by equipping scholars with the analytical foundation to incorporate visual media into historical research methods. Bailey is unequivocal in his conviction that using films as historical sources can help us come to a deeper understanding about the history of the long twentieth century (from the late nineteenth through early twenty-first centuries). Visual media can be a powerful way to engage students and provide a better understanding of historical events, societies, and cultures. This is especially true of foreign films, which can offer unique and often unfamiliar perspectives that enable students to explore societies and cultures much different from their own. Indeed, films can help students understand that history is not a single, universal narrative but rather, different interpretations can depend on the time, place, and perspective of the filmmaker. For instance, the Japanese anime film Grave of the Fireflies (1988) can provide students with a Japanese civilian point of view on the atomic bombing carried out by the United States in 1945. Films can also serve as a medium to explore historical events in an accessible and engaging narrative structure students may find more appealing than a textbook. Examples abound, from All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, 1979, 2022) as an example of the brutality and futility of the Great War to Cuba and the Cameraman (2017) that uses the director's collected footage to examine the effects of forty years of Fidel Castro's rule on the lives of everyday citizens. Instructors using films can foster critical thinking skills by comparing a film's depiction of events such as those in Dunkirk (2017) with textual primary and secondary sources, and encouraging students to consider such issues as bias, perspective, historical accuracy, and fact and fiction in historical films. Bailey's book is a vital resource in engaging students in this way. Two key elements make the book particularly strong in its practical applicability: its global focus apparent in the selection of the films and its organization. An introduction defines important terms, discusses world historical interpretation, and identifies several of the conventions and assumptions that go along with different types of world history films. Delving further into analysis, Bailey also explores how to identify arguments in historical films and how to analyze their historical content and context. The conclusion provides ideas on incorporating films into historical

Review of Nature at War: American Environments and World War II, Edited by Thomas Robertson, Richard P. Tucker, Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Peter Mansoor

Agricultural History, 2022

Hall, Mitchell. The Vietnam War (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2000). 136 pp, $18.60.

Adas, Michael. Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989). 430 pp, $29.95.