Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2025, History

This dissertation examines Spanish language manuscript cookbooks from the fifteenth through the mid-seventeenth centuries that combine advice on cooking, medicine, and cosmetics in order to show how academic theories about health were utilized by non-academically trained individuals for everyday use. Much of scholarship on the early modern Hispanic Kingdoms has been afflicted by the so-called “Black Legend of Spain,” the idea that Spain was religiously backward, scientifically stunted, and culturally cruel and superstitious. This view was rooted in sixteenth-century accounts of the Spanish Empire and promoted by English and Dutch propaganda that pitted the Catholic fanaticism of the Spanish against the virtuous colonization efforts of the English and the Dutch. This had the effect of casting the Spanish Empire and its predecessors, the Hispanic Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, as being outside the scientific mainstream of the rest of Europe. Other than English and Dutch propaganda that cast their empires as scientifically progressive and religiously tolerant, much of the “Black Legend” resulted from the dysfunctional nature of empires in general and the waning power of Spain in the eighteenth century. This dissertation focuses on illustrating the ways in which the late medieval and early modern Hispanic Kingdoms and the Empire were thoroughly involved in the development of science in Western Europe by arguing that the role of women in healthcare and women's health concerns were an important facet of the growth of medical science in the period. I begin by examining the basic treatises of humoral theory by Galen, Avicenna and Dioscorides, and by tracing their development and influence through the formal academic systems of the middle to late Middle Ages. Toledo was an important translation site for Arabic medical texts into Latin. I then illustrate how important texts on women's health utilized recipes to promote humoral theories of health through food, medicine an (open full item for complete abstract)

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2025, Antioch Seattle: Clinical Psychology

This dissertation presents a comprehensive analysis of the current research on scrupulosity, a subtype of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) characterized by intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviors related to religious and moral concerns. The dissertation identifies key similarities and differences from OCD, and directs focus to thematically related yet unsubstantiated theoretical work in psychology that helps elucidate the core features and etiological factors of scrupulosity as differentiated from other OCD subtypes. The study addresses the critical dearth of research on scrupulosity, aiming to fill significant gaps in the literature regarding its historical context, varied presentation and prevalence in different cultural contexts, and potentially effective treatment approaches to address better the needs of a significant number of people worldwide. Beginning with an exploration of historical conceptualizations from the 2nd through the early 21st centuries, the dissertation traces the recognition of scrupulosity and recommendations for treatment across various cultural traditions and major world religions including Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity, from both Protestant and Catholic sources, as well as non-religious belief systems. It highlights notable historical figures who exhibited scrupulous behaviors contextualizing them with a modern psychological lens. As the leading theologians of their faiths, they often ironically v advised its treatment from their own experience as the most influential theologians of each of their faiths. These historical writings still have wisdom to impart today. The history of scrupulosity is, in many ways, a history of religion across time and culture, as well as of the birth and first 150 years of psychology itself. Key schools of psychological thought are explored for relevance to developing contemporary evidence-based treatments. Due to few qualitative or quantitative studies on scrupulosity compared t (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2024, History

This dissertation explores Edirne's transformation from a key Ottoman imperial center to a contested borderland region during the early 20th century. Edirne—historically known as Adrianople—became increasingly significant urban center as the Ottoman Empire lost European territories due to wars and the rise of Balkan nation-states during the 19th and 20th centuries. Formerly the Ottoman capital from 1369 to 1453, Edirne served as a political, military, and economic hub, vital to the empire's southeastern European domains. This dissertation situates Edirne in the context of the "long World War I period," including the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), which led to substantial territorial losses for the empire and the eventual partitioning of its lands into new nation-states in Southeastern Europe and the Middle East. This period marked Edirne's evolution into the empire's western borderlands, characterized by shifting territorial and communal boundaries. I examine how the Balkan Wars redrew borders, detailing the siege and temporary loss of Edirne to Bulgarian forces before the Ottoman recapture. I discuss how Ottoman diplomatic efforts aimed to preserve Edirne within its territories. I also emphasize the role of violence, and the use of “language of violence” by the Ottoman authorities to assert control over borderland regions. Through this lens, this dissertation argues that Edirne's borderland experience exemplifies the complexities of a "nationalizing" Ottoman state, where diverse communities complicated the empire's efforts toward centralization and homogenization, revealing an empire that, despite undefined borders, functioned in many respects like a nation-state. This dissertation thereby sheds light on Edirne as a microcosm of the broader imperial transformation in the early 20th century from empire to nation-state.

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2024, History

This thesis argues for an interdisciplinary examination of the origins and subsequent appearance of the Wassermann blood test, the first test developed for detecting syphilis, in eugenics initiatives and medicolegal mandates. When this seemingly impartial medical tool intersected with preexisting social and cultural biases regarding syphilis its story became one of blood purity initiatives for the preservation and proliferation of white normativity. Reframing the Wassermann as more than a passive medical tool highlights how ostensibly impartial medical processes can produce institutional violence in masculinized spaces of control. While the Wassermann offered a source of hope for protecting against syphilitic infection, in application, the serodiagnostic tool served as a source of scientific validation when misapplied as a quantifiable method for justifying medicolegal interventions in the 20th century US. This examination traces the bioethical legacy of the Wassermann from its 1906 development in Berlin to its appearance in eugenics-based legal mandates in the US. Through an analysis of scientific publications and court records at archives across the East Coast this paper centers those who didn't benefit from the Wassermann and investigates how scientific authority derived from an imperfect diagnostic test was harnessed to reproduce and reinforce the sociocultural biases that linger today.

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2024, History

For the first century of its existence, colonial Puritanism in New England embraced anti-Catholicism. It first emerged out of anti-Catholic efforts to continue the Reformation in England, by removing Catholic rituals, symbols, ideas, and people from the English church, state, and society. Through the processes of migration and settlement-building in the unique contexts of the New England borderlands, their once “English” anti-Catholicism evolved and became “Americanized.” Puritans felt this new “Americanized” anti-Catholicism on an everyday basis, making colonial Puritan anti-Catholicism more intense than its English counterpart. Embracing an anti-Catholic “errand” into the New England borderlands, a region filled with new people and geography that was far from the reaches of the English state, colonial Puritans experimented with and crafted their religious, political, and social institutions, practices, and identities on anti-Catholicism. Catholics became “the Other,” imagined as violent and oppressive tyrants, plotters, murderers, and even the anti-Christ, from which colonial Puritans defined their community in opposition. Constant conflict with Indigenous peoples, New France, and “popery” raised anxieties and fears over the very survival of Puritan communities. As a result, New Englanders passed stranger laws—regulations, oaths, and other means to control the presence of alien peoples—to restrict Catholic “strangers” within their colonies. By exploring the relationship between the colonies of New England and Ireland, it becomes clear that the English language of civility and violence, which was employed in New England against both Indigenous peoples and Catholics, originated within the process of Irish colonization. This language was thus tied to that colonization's virulent anti-Catholicism, which was then transported to New England.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, History

France's nuclear tests in the Sahara, conducted between 1960 and 1966, catalyzed a series of events that profoundly influenced global nuclear politics and the process of African decolonization. Set against the backdrop of the Algerian War, African decolonization, and Cold War competition, the atomic tests in the Sahara had far-reaching implications beyond the immediate scope of France's nuclear ambitions. This dissertation examines the relationship between France's nuclear tests, the unfolding decolonization in Africa, and the making of the global nuclear order. By situating the Sahara tests within the broader context of the end of colonial empires and the dawn of the nuclear age, it offers a fresh perspective on the factors that shaped nuclear decision-making in the post-World War II era. Divided into two parts with six chapters, this project's first part examines how decolonization affected nuclear politics, tracing the decline of the French colonial empire from the 1950s colonization of the Sahara to the establishment of nuclear infrastructure and Great Power nuclear diplomacy. The second part inquires the reverse dynamic, exploring how nuclear politics influenced the decolonization process and postcolonial countries in Africa. I argue that decolonization conditioned and shaped the initial conditions of nuclear politics at a global level, with France's Sahara tests serving as an exceptional event that catalyzed these profound impacts in both the Global North and the Global South. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources from multiple countries, including newly declassified documents from French, British, and U.S. archives, as well as materials from several African countries such as Nigeria, Zambia, Namibia, and Ghana, this research delves into the reactions and resistance of African states, non-state actors, transnational activist networks, and the international community to France's nuclear testing, revealing the web of interests and power dynamics that defi (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Dance Studies

This dissertation examines the dance studio and its built environment, exploring the dynamic relationship between dance and space. The focal point is the concept of the dance studio, analyzed through the urban landscapes and the experimental art practices in the city of Zagreb from the 1950s to the 2010s. The study investigates the dance studio through the histories of spatial structures, dance history, and the history of cinema. Shaped by these processes, dance is specifically entangled with spatial structures and is expanded by their horizons, outcomes, and histories. The dance studio here is a hypothesis built in the process—a space that exists at the intersection of context and time, with dance emerging as an archival record embedded in spatial and societal change. The dissertation argues that this very process constitutes the dance studio's structure: a space, practice, and environment made possible—reimagined, shaped, and hypothesized through the lens of dance and its experimental inquiry. The study approaches the dance studio from the vantage point of the long contemporaneity, extending across both modernism and postmodernism while facilitating the juxtaposition and productive friction of these terms. The city of Zagreb is approached as a dynamic multitude, encompassing a range of developments in the socialist and post-socialist periods that influenced, challenged, and shaped art, dance artists, and their spaces between 1949 and 2010.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, History

This dissertation examines how reformist (1989-1992) and communist (1994-1997) activist groups—holding diametrically opposing ideological views—made sense of the transition period from the Ukrainian SSR to independent Ukraine in Dnipropetrovsk print media. The main argument of the dissertation is that the two activist groups participated in the formation of a Dnipropetrovsk-specific variety of civic Ukrainian nationalism, by depicting Dnipropetrovsk political elites as an existential threat to Ukraine's sovereignty and deputizing themselves in the threat response. This blend of civic nationalism helps to explain how the Russophone, industrial Dnipropetrovsk in eastern Ukraine became a bulwark of Ukrainian patriotism and resistance to Russia's invasion of Ukraine since 2014. Dnipropetrovsk residents saw Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a threat to their regional identity, which first developed in the transition period based on the presumption that Dnipropetrovsk would play a coequal role to Kyiv in the political trajectory of the Ukrainian state. Source material for the dissertation includes the activists' periodicals, key officials' autobiographies, and other published works. Historians have noted that Dnipropetrovsk served an important supportive role in the official narratives of state prestige in the Tsarist Imperial and Soviet periods. The tumultuousness of the transition period, combined with the political and economic influence of Dnipropetrovsk vis-a-vis Kyiv, emboldened the two activist groups to claim an unprecedented coequal role to the state in shaping the official narrative of national prestige.

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2024, History (Arts and Sciences)

This thesis essays to study and interpret a small body of poems from Southern Gaul which respond to the breach of the Rhine frontier and subsequent crises from 406-418 AD. After demonstrating contemporary literary conventions in both secular and Christian discourses, the paper will survey how the poems in question came to terms with recent catastrophe and thereby rearticulated differing ideas of empire and meta-history which drew upon the Latin Epic tradition but deployed them in a context that was increasingly Christian and destabilized. While this will shed limited light on the political events, it will primarily serve to situate the beginnings of the Fall of the Western Empire in their intellectual context and indicate how they served as agents of the transformation of the Classical World and the draining of the secular.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Dance Studies

This dissertation examines how late medieval dance serves as a medium for creating and performing communal belonging in Augsburg, Germany and the surrounding region in southern Germany. I analyze how the regulation and practice of dance in Augsburg between 1300 and 1550 C.E. helped define the city's urban communities in the late medieval period, and how the ongoing remembrance of premodern dance today in southern Germany helps reaffirm or redefine Germanness in the cultural imaginary. Employing methods from dance, performance, history, and critical race studies and building upon recent work on racialization in medieval studies, this dissertation challenges predominant narratives of late medieval dance that centers elite Christians as the main agents of dance and other movement practices. By plumbing the legacies of medieval dance—in archival traces, reenactments, and popular imaginings—my work further examines how the memory and practice of medieval dance continues to transmit the multi-layered embodied politics of medieval southern Germany. Through archival methods and discourse analysis, I examine city laws, chronicles, and pictorial sources to ascertain how people in the medieval era approached, practiced, and regulated dance. Municipal records evidence that elite, Christian city leaders legislated dancing to construct and enforce a patriarchal and hierarchical social order within the city. Examining Jewish archives, the spatial landscapes of medieval cities, and depictions of the moresca dance in Jewish and Christian sources, I trace how Jewish and Christian residents used dance to form their own communities and how dance fostered Jewish-Christian relations. Finally, by working through these archival tracings of medieval dance, I consider how the reception and interpretation of medieval dance archives shape understandings of historical and contemporary community in the Bavarian region. In particular, I examine how medievalist narratives, built partially from t (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, History

“Algeria's French University” explores the social, intellectual, institutional, and political history of the Faculte des lettres d'Alger, the humanities college of the University of Algiers, between 1930 and 1965. The University of Algiers was France's only full-fledged colonial research and teaching university. Like other faculties at the University of Algiers, the Faculte des lettres was both a center for North African research and a provider of French higher education to Algeria's European settler population. Using archival sources ranging from institutional records to former professors' personal documents and student newspapers, this dissertation examines the relationship between the production and dissemination of colonial-era North African research, higher education, and colonial and postcolonial politics and society in French Algeria. To do so, it excavates the material, institutional, and social conditions by which certain forms of knowledge became accepted within an academic community and society at large, as well as how accepted knowledge changed as social, economic, and political contexts shifted. Doing so shows that the Faculte's research and teaching role experienced considerable upheaval between 1930 and the 1960s due to increasingly urgent calls for colonial reform and major events, like World War II and the Algerian War for Independence. From the early 1900s until the 1930s, the Faculte was the center for French research on North African history, geography, and languages. The Faculte's status peaked during the Second World War when political and university leaders envisioned the University of Algiers could become the leading research center and university for all of France's African territories. After World War II, however, the Faculte's renowned scholarship on North Africa stalled and it developed an increasingly metropolitan orientation. Coupled with the rise of leftist maverick scholars who challenged the Faculte's scholarship and the increasingl (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2024, German

At its core, this thesis delves into the intricate layers of posthumous historiography surrounding Empress Elisabeth of Austria – examining not just her history, identity, and ideas of visuality, but also probing the underlying mechanisms shaping the construction of her biographical narrative. It seeks to unravel the complexities inherent in the selection process of what information is deemed pertinent for inclusion, especially considering the nuanced treatment of sensitive or disruptive pieces of information. By scrutinizing this selection criteria, the thesis aims to shed light on the underlying motivations and biases guiding such decisions as well as the implications of their inclusion – or lack, thereof. Furthermore, this study explores the experimental possibilities of adaptation within the realm of contemporary Austrian film. It posits that the burgeoning interest in Sisi within wider Habsburg scholarship has catalyzed innovative approaches to storytelling in cinema. Through a detailed analysis of select cinematic works, the thesis elucidates how the exploration of Sisi's legacy has sparked a renaissance in Austrian filmmaking, fostering a fertile ground for experimentation and reinterpretation. By intertwining insights from historiography, film studies, and cultural analysis, this thesis not only offers a comprehensive understanding of the complexities surrounding Sisi's portrayal but also serves as a catalyst for broader discussions on the intersection of history, identity, and visual representation in contemporary discourse.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, History

This dissertation uncovers how, why, and where the modern pet dog originated. The average dog's transition from a working animal to a nonworking companion in the nineteenth-century United Kingdom constituted the dog's most radical alteration of purpose since their initial domestication prior to the establishment of agricultural civilization. This dissertation contends that the modern family dog originated during the long-nineteenth century (1780-1920) primarily in Victorian Britain—the initial nation altered by the interlocking forces of industrialization and urbanization. These processes provided the necessary cultural and material preconditions to reconceptualize this traditional working animal as a nonworking companion. These phenomena also provided the necessary infrastructure to manufacture commodities—from biscuits to soap—that became necessary to maintain dogs. Family dogs altered domestic and urban environments, individual and collective habits, local and global economic markets, and traditional human and canine behaviors. British pet culture surged beyond national boundaries to become the global norm governing appropriate human-dog interaction. Fundamental English practices—such as leash laws—remain normal today alongside British breeds that garner worldwide favor. Despite their integral presence in modern Western culture, however, there remains no holistic—nor interdisciplinary—narrative explaining how the typical dog transformed from a working animal to a nonworking companion. In this sense, this project rectifies this pronounced historiographical absence and knowledge gap for the broader dog-owning public. Answering this question necessitates adopting an interdisciplinary perspective entangling humans and nonhumans since Britons were not solely responsible for creating pet dogs. Rather, dogs actively shaped this process. Understanding dogs in their own right—their cognitive, sensory, and physical capabilities—hinges on including insights from animal s (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, History

This dissertation examines the complex dynamics of European intervention, war, and post-war transitions, as the multiconfessional, multilingual imperial borderland of Epirus evolved into a region divided between two states, Greece and Albania, by the practices of border demarcation and the forces of national homogenization. I focus on this complicated and nuanced shift through the lens of religious identity, and the significant roles war and diplomacy played in crystalizing religion as a key component of national identity. Multiconfessional imperial spaces did not conform neatly within the paradigm of the nation-state, and this tension was a factor that local communities and national activists confronted and navigated as the European Powers dictated, through diplomacy, that these communities must align themselves with rigid national categories and within newly established corresponding territories. By its nature of pluralism, multiconfessionalism poses a challenge for the concept of homogeneity that the nation-state paradigm demands. Therefore, in Epirus, where local communities often blurred the boundaries of religious distinction through social interactions and even intermarriages, religious communities were forced to disentangle or, “unmix,” in order to conform to Albanian and Greek definitions of national identity and European diplomatic demands for the creation of homogenous nation-states. This disentangling of lands and people was a long and volatile process that began with European intervention in Epirus during the rule of Ali Pasha in the late-Ottoman period, continued through the demise of the Ottoman Empire in Europe in 1913, and became practiced at the national and local levels during and after the Paris Peace in 1919. I argue that the transition from a multilingual, multiconfessional imperial space into a border region torn between the competing claims of the Greek and Albanian states was a process that required the unmixing, or disentangling, of rel (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2024, Musicology

The soundscapes of late-eighteenth and early-to-mid nineteenth-century France were acutely informed by years of political, social, and imperial upheaval and violence. In the decades following the Revolution of 1789, musical instruments sonified political instability and the goals of military conquest. In France, the lines between concert hall, festival ground, and battlefield blurred as a process of organological expansion and ensemble integration began. The nineteenth-century Romantic orchestra which emerged by 1830 was not merely a continuation of eighteenth-century orchestrational practice, but a distinctly French creation that reflected a turbulent, increasingly-militarized national landscape. This dissertation seeks to understand what such an ensemble, and its several component instrumental groups, meant and could do. Musicologists have recently turned to examining the meaning behind instrumental ensembles of this period, paying particular attention to issues of instrumentation, affect, and timbre. My interest in the history and politics of organology and timbre is similarly granular: I suggest that individual instruments carry distinct historical, cultural, and political associations, and that we can begin to understand the social, political, and military history of France between 1789 and 1869 by examining the instruments that animated the nation's major musical genres. I am especially interested in the orchestra's power as a national political collective, its function as a type of sonic weaponry, and its carrying of the sonic markers of empire. By examining the intersections between sound, power, politics, orchestration, warfare, and trauma, my project takes us back in time to the moment when composers such as Hector Berlioz and his contemporaries first deployed sound as a weapon, ushering in cultures of auditory violence that resonated through the following centuries. As I will show, nineteenth-century instruments could be deployed as weapons, just a (open full item for complete abstract)

MA, Kent State University, 2023, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

Between 1473 and 1666, the printing industry in London was heavily regulated by the Stationers' Company, but after the 1660s, the Company became unable to effectively regulate printed texts. This thesis compares the depictions of masculinity which appeared in early modern English books between periods of heavy regulation and periods of loose regulation. Changes to the printing industry, including changes to the laws surrounding censorship and economic changes in both the market and England as a whole, contributed to changes in how social ideologies are represented in the books that the market produced. During the early period of heavy regulation, narratives of masculinity across texts were relatively consistent and cooperated with one another to create a cohesive, hegemonic version of masculinity. However, as the market grew and opened, there was no longer a reasonable expectation of regulation, and more, often differing versions of masculinity were able to compete with the traditional hegemonic narrative.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, History

This dissertation is an analysis of American service members of Italian origin and how their military service during World War II influenced their assimilation into American mainstream society and the construction of present-day Italian-American identity. I argue that Italian-Americans' large-scale service in the military between 1941 and 1945 proved crucial in determining a rapid assimilation into the American mainstream that was complete by the end of the war, as well as substantial educational, professional, and economic advances in the years immediately afterward. One of the keys for this positive record lay in Italian-Americans' unquestioned demonstration of loyalty through their service against their country of origin, Italy. At the same time, while World War II was a catalyst for Italian-Americans' assimilation, their service in Italy also brought about a reconciliation with their Italian roots that they were aiming at downplaying, and ultimately their maintenance instead of complete erasure. Loyal service in World War II later became a tenet of Italian-American pride when it was re-elaborated during the 1960s and 1970s movement for ethnic revival by later generations of Italian-Americans. This study also complements the existing historiography on enemy alien minorities during World War II (German and Japanese-Americans) and other ethnic groups. As a result, it facilitates understanding of the interplay of factors of military service, race, ethnicity, and wider socio-racial contexts in determining inclusion or exclusion into American mainstream society and preservation of elements of ethnic identity.

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2023, History (Arts and Sciences)

The purpose of this study was to examine the works of William Perkins and situate his singular treatise A Discourse on the Damned Art of Witchcraft within his broader theology. This thesis argued that Perkins approached witchcraft not from a superstitious viewpoint but as a means of addressing a broader range of concerns he held about the nature of sin and piety. By analyzing his wider collection of publications as well as the Puritan movement in Elizabethan England this study demonstrated that William Perkins held a very similar view on witchcraft as other Puritans of his time. Perkins did not believe witches had any genuine power but instead were a part of illusions produced by the devil. Perkins argued that the primary issue with witchcraft is that it is a grave sin against God because it breaks the promise Christians make during their baptism. This treatise is an excellent example of Perkins using relevant fears his parishioners would have had to dismiss popular superstitions and translate Scripture into understandable and relatable lessons.

MA, Kent State University, 2023, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

This thesis analyzes the international eugenics movement and retains a particular focus on Harry Hamilton Laughlin, the prominent American eugenicist and superintendent of the Cold Spring Harbor Eugenics Office (ERO) and his world government proposal. Despite previous historiographical trends which privilege nationalistic or mere comparative models of eugenics, this thesis follows a truly transnational model (reflecting the work of Daniel Rodgers on Progressivism), in order to demonstrate that both eugenic knowledge and legislation was shared internationally across both sides of the Atlantic. Moreover, this thesis argues that Harry Laughlin's world government proposal, in which he sought to apply international eugenics to world government, was not only a logical extension of his eugenic goals, but also his attempt to repair his perceived issues with the League of Nations. Overall, this thesis seeks to shed light on the international nature of the eugenics movement not only in the historical record, but in order to better combat eugenics' legacy through an international anti-eugenics movement.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2023, History (Arts and Sciences)

After the Vietnam War, the US Army pivoted from counter-insurgency in Southeast Asia towards the renewed possibility of war with the USSR in Central Germany. This shift in perspective coincided with dramatic shifts in Army policy, most importantly the transition from conscription to the All-Volunteer Force, as well as the introduction of new battlefield technologies which transformed the battlespace. This dissertation analyzes the complicated military relationship between the US Army and an important European ally. It argues that during this period of intense reform, the US Army and the West German Bundeswehr used both new and preexisting institutions to engage in a period of intense, sympathetic, and mutually inspired reforms which developed significant new concepts in land warfare. This is significant because this period of cooperation helped to reaffirm a special relationship between the US and West Germany, which transformed to become the most significant within NATO and Western Europe. The focus of this dissertation is on the mechanics of the transatlantic exchange and how this shaped both forces through the last decades of the Cold War.