Browsing by Author "Edgar, Peter"
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Item "On To Avalon" : The History of Avalon Groves(2017-04) Edgar, Peter; Shanks, Kelsi; Hoffman, Kaitlynn; Harper, Caitlin"When we think of oranges, we think of sunshine, soft winds, flowers and palms. We think of romance and unreal things because the turning of sunshine into golden fruit is one of Nature's absorbing miracles." This is the opening line of a flowery brochure produced by the Orlando Orange Groves Company, in the mid 1920s, and given to every potential investor and tourist who would take a tour of the land outside of Winter Garden, Florida. The business proposal acquired by the staff of the McKay Archives in August 2016, is more quick to come to the point of the sales pitch. It begins "Orange County ... produces approximately one-third of all the oranges grown in the State of Florida. The rolling ridge land, composed of the famous Norfolk Fine Sand, is especially adapted to the culture of the orange."Item Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Our Stor[y/ies]?: A Comparative Rhetorical Analysis of 2 Popular Histories of the United States(Florida Southern College, 2020-04) Edgar, PeterJust before the campaign for the 2016 presidential election started, Anniversary editions of two works, A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, and A Patriot’s History of the United States, by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen, were released by their respective publishers. Each work is a one-volume synthesis of American history written for public consumption, yet each represents a different perspective on the subject of American history. Zinn takes the view that a close look at American history yields a story of resistance to the wealthy and powerful, and Schweikart and Allen contend that an honest national narrative is one that inspires awe and patriotism in its readers. Both books are touchstones of American political ideology, but neither had been directly compared with the other in a study. This thesis performs a comparison and contrast of the two texts from the perspective of their accounts of five important United States armed conflicts. First, I analyze the work’s citations, quotations, and structures on a quantitative level; then, I perform a rhetorical analysis of the chapters in each book about the American Revolution, the American Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the Second World War, and the Vietnam War. Last, I comment on the works’ effectiveness as texts meant for the public and the classroom, and compare the constructions of these texts to the standards, ethics, and best practices of the historical field.