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Book Review
| Sea Change at Annapolis: The United States Naval Academy, 1949–2000. By H. Michael Gelfand. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. xxxiv, 382 pp. $34.95, ISBN 978-0-8078-3047-5.)
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| The culture of the U.S. Naval Academy cannot be characterized by the phrase "a hundred and sixty years of tradition unmarred by progress," argues H. Michael Gelfand (p. xv). "Rather, events at Annapolis reflect the transformation of American culture and society at large in the post–World War II era" (ibid.). Gelfand is an assistant professor of history at James Madison University. Sea Change at Annapolis, based on his doctoral dissertation completed at the University of Arizona in 2002, is his first book. |
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This book is a study of institutional and cultural transformation at the Naval Academy during the second half of the twentieth century. Organized topically and written largely from the perspective of the academy's leadership, the book scrutinizes select changes rather than providing a comprehensive study of the institution's evolution during that period. Gelfand focuses on (listed roughly in order of the space devoted to each topic) the integration of women, minority integration and recruiting, the end of mandatory attendance for midshipmen at religious services, and, in a grab bag chapter, "the creation of the honor concept, protests, pranks and other remarkable activities" (p. 191). |
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