Abstract
This paper details the various circumstances that led up to the 1945 nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. The writer of this paper explores several theories as to why Bombardier Ferebee and the rest of his crew were ordered to Japan to drop the bomb that killed 180,000 people. Some theorists claim that America's display of weapons superiority was to show the rest of the world that it would not surrender to futile conflict. Others claim that President Truman approved the bombings to stop further death and destruction of innocent U.S. civilians and soldiers, following the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor. This paper also discusses President Roosevelt's decision to provide funding for atomic science research which shows foresight on the part of the government in recognizing a possible means to a swift conclusion to the war. The rumors that Germany was also developing the same technology may have provided the powerful catalyst to action by the Americans.

From the Paper
"The hope for diplomacy was also waning; Secretary of War Henry J. Stimson recalls: "high American officials had made some...unpleasant remarks about the Emperor, and it did not seem wise...that the Government should reverse its field too sharply; too many people were likely to cry shame." An article by Karl Compton published shortly after V-J Day entitled "If the Atomic Bomb Had Not Been Used" served as a reassurance to all American people and especially to Truman that what they had done was the right thing to do. In the article Compton questions several Japanese military officials to get their perspectives on the events, and finds that they were not confident in their ability to prevail over the Americans but would have fought to the last man, thus by dropping the bomb Truman in effect saved the remaining members of the Japanese armed forces. Truman later sent a letter of acknowledgement and appreciation for Compton's "first sensible statement I have seen on the subject."

Tags:japan, nuclear, political, theory, conspiracy, president, truman, security, war, pearl, harbor, u.s., world, war, two, germany, atomic

Abstract
This paper looks at how Rita Botwinick's "A Holocaust Reader: From Ideology to Annihilation" is a glimpse into the madness of the campaign to exterminate the Jews narrated from a historical and personal viewpoint by those who lived the nightmare. The author states that the Holocaust was not an accident but occurred because individuals, organizations and governments made choices, which not only legalized discrimination but also allowed prejudice, hatred and mass murder to occur, thus exhibiting the outcome of remaining silent and apathetic to the oppression of other human beings.

From the Paper
"The intent of the Reich was to strip all identity from the Jews and make survival impossible. Reinhard Heydrich was the mastermind behind the Nazi death camps. On January 20, 1942 at the Wannsee Conference he illustrated his plans to murder Europe's Jews. In fact, Auschwitz was regarded as the most effective concentration camp created by the Reich to carry out the Final Solution. Rudolf Hoss was named the commandant of Auschwitz whose goal it was to eliminate every prisoner that entered the camp. On August 16, 1942 a section of the barracks was designated for women prisoners. The conditions were far worse than the other sections. They had deplorable sanitary conditions that caused the rapid spread of disease."

Tags:jews, anathology, soldiers, concentration-camp, survival

Abstract
This paper is based on Hannah Arendt?s "Eichmann in Jerusalem". It discusses two views of the Holocaust: one that the perpetrators were Germans nurtured on a centuries old anti-Semitism tradition; and another that the perpetrators were ordinary people, caught up in a bureaucratized system of annihilation that encouraged unthinking complicity that made this evil seem banal or ordinary because everyone was going along with it. That these two views are easily reconciled is the thesis of the paper. Elie Wiesel?s "Night" and Michael Dobkowski?s "Genocide and The Modern Age" are used to supplement discussion of Arendt?s treatment of the trial of Adolf Eichmann.

From the Paper
"It is true that the Holocaust was perpetrated by Germans with a long history of pervasive inhumane anti-Semitic views. It is also valid to say that the Holocaust was facilitated by banal acceptance of a bureaucratized system of annihilation. With centuries of hatred, and barbarous treatment of Jews as precedent, it was easy for the Germans to move on to state sanctioned systematized slaughter. Those whose upbringing had taught them to hate Jews, might move quickly into positions of power in the Third Reich. Others who weren't capable of thinking for themselves, saw everyone else, including those they respected and admired supporting Hitler's answers to the Jewish question. A long tradition of anti-Semitism joined with unthinking complicity to escalate the banality of evil. As evil progressed through stages of classification, ghettoization, deportation, and concentration to eradication, it was just another step in the progression of dehumanization for those who had forgotten the unity of the human community."

Tags:camps, concentration, extermination, genocide, hitler, holocaust, nazis, night, trial, wiesel

Abstract
Dee Brown's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" is a fully documented account of the genocide of the American Indian in the late 1800's ending at the Battle of Wounded Knee. The paper shows how Brown brings to light a story of torture and atrocity not well known in American history. It examines Brown's use of personal portraits and detail to force the reader to face the evils of this chapter in America's past.

From the Paper
"Brown makes prodigious use of the various types of information obtained before writing the novel. His ultimate goal to find the truth is evident in the expansive research contained in his bibliography. It is clear that Brown was looking for informative answers to questions that haunted him about the War at Wounded Knee. He therefore knew that his consistency would lead him to some ultimate accuracy. In order to obtain purposeful evidence of Brown chose alternate forms of investigation including footnotes and bibliography from Congressional Records and U.S. Army treaties and life history texts of President Abraham Lincoln and General Phillip "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" Sheridan. He also sought-out different perspectives of the time which lead him to songs of the day, letters written by children and personal accounts from both sides."

Tags:Abraham, Lincoln, Phillip, Sheridan, plag

Abstract
The paper discusses the Holocaust which was the systematic annihilation of six million Jews by the Nazi regime. The paper also looks at the possible causes of the Holocaust such as unrest and Germany's economy, which was in shambles. The paper relates that these factors paved the way for the Nazi Party to gain power in Germany.The Nazi Party also used the Jews as a scapegoat for the country's problems. Finally the paper discusses why the European Jews allowed themselves to be led to death and why they did not resist.

From the Paper
"Both the mass murder of Jews and their expulsion to the death camps began before the anti-German and anti-Nazi struggle in occupied Europe turned to armed combat. At that stage, the Jews were not able to act to save themselves, and it was clear that any attempt to resist or rise up would only hasten destruction and be met with sweeping collective punishment because everyone knew that any resistance, especially if it resulted in the killing of even one German, was liable to lead to the slaughter of the entire community or even the extermination of many communities. Resistance under totalitarian systems is not the norm. Research on human behavior under totalitarian regimes has shown that manifestations of resistance and of individual and group rebellion are actually the exception rather than the rule. Under both Nazi and Soviet rule, those sections of the population subjected to repression, massive incarcerations, and death, and who stood no real chance of improving their lot by physical resistance, hardly ever took up arms. Essentially, however, it seems that persons deprived of an orderly society, stricken with despair, and unable to save their lives or envisage a future for themselves did not revolt or fight hopeless battles".

Tags:annihilation, Nazi, regime, unrest, genocide, Jewish, passivity, ghettos

Abstract
The paper relates that Sylvia Plath's and Abraham Lincoln's poetry both bear the mark of taboo American literature given the frank nature of their discussions of self-annihilation. The paper shows how Plath's "Edge" and Lincoln's "Suicide's Soliloquy" each offer unique perspectives on death and suicide using the literary conventions typical of their generation. The paper believes that although Lincoln uses poetic language and literary devices that are outmoded, his writing is equally as accessible as Plath's.

From the Paper
"Both Sylvia Plath and Abraham Lincoln wrote about suicide, and therefore both undoubtedly contemplated the act. Plath did end her own life, though, whereas Lincoln's life ended by his homicide at the hands of John Wilkes Booth. Suicide and its accompanying emotional components are not novel topics for poets. Poetry is defined by its emotionality and hyperbole. Suicide is, however, a taboo topic in American culture because of the ingrained optimism that is a part of the country's worldview. Manifest Destiny and the American Dream preclude morbid thinking and so suicidal ideation is not widely expressed in American literature. Therefore, Plath's and Lincoln's poetry both bear the mark of taboo American literature given the frank nature of their discussions of self-annihilation."

Tags:death, self-annihilation, literary, devices

Abstract
The paper examines Winston Churchill's poem, "The Influenza", which describes how the disease is almost unconquerable, until at last some supernatural power acts to save the human race from complete annihilation. The paper discusses how symbolism can either be used in terms of its general connection in the collective social mind, or it can be used in a new sense that is revealed by the work itself. The paper illustrates how several words and phrases are used in both these ways.

From the Paper
"Churchill opens his poem with a number of questions pertaining to the cruelty of the disease he is describing. The questions themselves could relate to the uncertainty of those who contract the disease, as well as to those who remain behind. In the line "It journeyed with the sun", the sun is used in a different symbolic association than is normally the case. In general language, the sun is usually symbolic of happiness and joy. In the poem however it acquires a more sinister association. Specifically, the sun appears to signify the inevitability and universality of the disease. The sun travels everywhere and eventually reaches everyone on earth. This traveling process also foreshadows Churchill's assertion later in the poem, that nobody, regardless of status or wealth, is safe from infection. The disease, like the sun, does not discriminate."

Tags:associations, disease, annihilation

Abstract
The paper examines Lucy S. Dawidowicz's and Raul Hilberg's analyses of the history of European Jews. The paper discusses how both authors describe the nature of the process of the annihilation of the Jew and the way Germany was organized to carry it out, but Dawidowicz focuses more on the victims and how they reacted and what happened to them, while Hilberg focuses more on the machinery of death and on the lack of morality of so many functionaries and workers who assisted in the process.

From the Paper
"Much of the Holocaust was indeed carried out by career civil servants, military personnel, and others in the private sector. The Holocaust itself thus became routinized so that it was carried on as if it were any other government activity. Two reasons given for the participation of ordinary men and women include obedience to authority, and the modern era's pursuit of specialization so that people could perform their part without knowing what the whole entailed, or without admitting what the whole entailed. It may be impossible to determine one reason why the many man involved committed the acts they did, for any general explanation is certain to be applicable only to a percentage of the whole. One force that we can see as operating in this case is the conditioning of society so that people respect and defer to authority. In this case, the society itself had a certain tradition of racism which affected these men and women and determined what they were being asked to do."

Tags:annihilation, anti-Semitism, Nazis, Hitler, Aryans, deportations, incarceration, destruction

Abstract
This paper explores how legal inequality and the wholesale annihilation of African-American rights has gone underground, but hasn t disappeared. The author claims that it has changed from being institutionalized in law to being surreptitiously enforced in a thousand societal ways, but is still present.

From the Paper
It was not new when the founding fathers of America met together to create our constitution, nor when they first set their signatures to the Declaration of Independence. America was not the first nation to keep a race of enslaved people, nor the first nation to think itself enslaved and rise against its masters. Slavery have been a part of human life through-out time, and many of the ancestors of even the whitest line have been slaves. Rome took slaves by the thousands from the nations of Europe. Greece had slave markets."

Tags:Jewish, people, strangers, strange, land, enslaved, African, Egypt, natives, Africa, cultures, America

Abstract
This paper details the four threats of nuclear annihilation that the Russian nuclear program has created: accidental launch due to a malfunction, failure of the Russian early warning system, a launch of a nuclear weapon because of a rogue commander, the detonating of a stolen nuclear warhead that has been smuggled out of Russia, and the detonation of a nuclear weapon that was built with Russian fissile material. The paper also describes the meager steps that Russia and the United States have taken to prevent a nuclear catastrophe. Most importantly the paper stresses that public awareness of this critical situation is imperative to prevention of such a disaster.

Tags:nuclear, russia, ussr, weapons