Research and writings dedicated to the life of Jackie Robinson have generally focused on his achievements in the realm of baseball. In most of these works, Robinson’s success in breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball is exposed to heighten his contribution to humanity beyond that of a mere athlete. This is not an adequate approach to the study of Robinson’s humanitarian achievements. The focus of this research paper includes and extends beyond baseball to include other aspects of Robinson’s contribution to humanity. It will be shown that Robinson learned at a young age to face adverse situations and fight to create a positive result; a tool he would use throughout his life. Through the utilization of this tool he would be groomed to become the man to break the color barrier in Major-League Baseball. During this period and beyond Robinson’s passion for helping people will be exposed to show his contribution to humanity in the areas of politics, business, civil rights, and charity. The combination of all of these achievements will show that a deeper contribution to humanity was made by Robinson. A contribution beyond that of just baseball which would lead to a legacy that continues to make an impact today.
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History
The Things They Carried
Tim O’Brien wrote a series of gripping individual stories that were combined to create one book: The Things They Carried. This book recreated the emotion of a Vietnam War draftee before, during, and after the war. In a closer analysis of The Things They Carried the book explains the reason for writing the book, the strategies involved in this style of the writing, and an account of history from the perspective of the author through personal experience.
O’Brien’s thesis centers on the moral of a war story. This thesis is made evident by splitting the book into separate individual stories (vignettes). The stories contain a common argument that O’Brien makes through the use of his characters; morality does not fit within the context of the story. O’Brien makes it very clear throughout the book that the moral of a true war story is that there is no moral. If a war story is not fowl, evil, disgusting, and retched it is not a true war story.
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The Origin of the American Civil War (Thesis Analyzed)
The Origin of the American Civil War, written by Gerald Gunderson, addresses the ongoing debate of what was the cause of the American Civil War. Gunderson clearly expresses his thesis by stating, “Many of these explanations have been thoughtfully prepared and then further polished by cross-examination, yet when all these efforts have been objectively considered they yield few definitive conclusions” (Gunderson 915). He briefly addresses some of the debated causes of the war which includes conflicting objectives, slavery, the development of economic organizations, and succession. After his brief explanation of the ongoing debates, he provides an in-depth research analysis of the cost of war versus abolition. This is an attempt to determine whether the “direct economic stake in slavery” (Gunderson 941) for the South could be motivation to cause war.
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