Book Description
"Without the Cold War, what's the point of being an American?" As if in answer to this poignant question from John Updike's Rabbit at Rest, Stephen Whitfield examines the impact of the Cold War--and its dramatic ending--on American culture in an updated version of his highly acclaimed study. In a new epilogue to this second edition, he extends his analysis from the McCarthyism of the 1950s, including its effects on the American and European intelligensia, to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and beyond.
Whitfield treats his subject matter with the eye of a historian, reminding the reader that the Cold War is now a thing of the past. His treatment underscores the importance of the Cold War to our national identity and forces the reader to ask, Where do we go from here? The question is especially crucial for the Cold War historian, Whitfield argues. His new epilogue is partly a guide for new historians to tackle the complexities of Cold War studies.
Customer Reviews:
Solid overview of US cultural history from 1946-1962.......2004-06-11
Whitfield's book serves as a succinct overview of American Cold War culture, which he defines as ending in the early 1960s (a questionable decision but one made by many scholars who employ the "Cold War Culture" rubric).
What sets apart this book from other entries in the literature is Whitfield's recognition of the importance of religion to Cold War America and his willingness to grapple with the Cold War's full range of moral implications (an element lacking in most academic studies of the domestic side of the Cold War, which tend to fixate endlessly on McCarthy, who is used to tar and discredit all variants of American anti-Communism). This is not to suggest that Whitfield is an apologist for McCarthy, not at all, but to commend Whitfield for understanding that, to paraphrase Arthur Koestler, the Cold War was the story of the United States fighting for a half-truth against a total lie.
Culture of Cold War -- Whitfield.......2001-07-14
Whitfield's book is extremely informative. The connections he makes are fascinating. The book made me want to go out to the library and Blockbuster and look at the popular books and movies he talks about for a second time in a fresh light.
Intelectually Challenging.......2001-02-17
This was rated a "3" by me because it was a little redundant as well as choppy. The book was great in the sense of intelecutal reading but lacked the story like atmosphere. I wouldn't recommend this book to be read for enjoyment, but it would be great if it were used as research on a paper. The chapters are broken up into sections 1,2,3,..etc, so once you have read one section the rest are really just other examples of what the author is trying to get across, easy to skim through for good facts and info. Good Luck!
Book Description
Kristin Henderson is married to a Marine Corps chaplain who has served in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Her portraits of military wives with spouses at war are both deeply engaging and hard-won. The author's insider experience allows her to uncover hidden and often difficult aspects of military culture on and off the vast bases that define many regions of America. It has earned her respect from military families as well as unique access to military staff. Henderson's story focuses on two very different women, Marissa Boots and Beth Pratt, as their husbands leave for Iraq and they both experience intense indoctrination into life alone at Fort Bragg, South Carolina. Extraordinarily revealing scenes from the lives of these women and other military families illuminate the truths of living in the shadow of America's military. The overwhelming effects of anticipatory grief; strongly enforced mores concerning infidelity; feelings of alienation from nondeployed military and the rest of the world; the effects of e-mail/cell phone/CNN culture; the too-frequent homecoming violenceall of these, Henderson shows, are powerful psychological realities for military families. Hidden Homefront offers moving and necessary testimony to all of us from the families who support America's way of war, and way of life.
Customer Reviews:
Every American should read this book.......2007-07-17
A common comment these days amongst military families is "our country isn't at war...our military is...the country is at the mall." Although our country is still at war, the only ones truly sacrificing are the military and their families. (and for many those sacrfices will continue for a lifetime, no matter when this war ends.) I nodded and sobbed and laughed throughout this book. Kristin is an amazing writer and managed to do incredibly thorough research to follow these families through their experiences. A military spouse herself who has dealt with multiple deployments, she captures the challenges. We wish every person in Congress would study books like this so they have a full view of the impact of their decisions.
Kathie Hightower, coauthor of Help! I'm a Military Spouse...I Get a Life Too!
An Awesome Read!.......2007-07-06
I haven't even received my copy yet, but I've already read this book several times (borrowed from a friend) and wanted a copy of my own. From the moment I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. This book takes you on an emotional rollercoaster that you'll appreciate whether you're a military spouse or not. I cried along with the women during their trying times and rejoiced with them at their husband's homecomings. The author captures the essence of the moments exactly. I would reccomend this book to anyone looking for a good read, just remember to bring the tissues!
good read for Military spouses.......2007-05-16
This was a decent book for Military spouses and civilians alike. It explains the hardships that we endure, the pain of saying goodbye to our loved ones, and the stress of running a household alone. I learned a few things from this book even though I've been a Marine's wife for a few years now. The only thing that I didn't really like about this book was that it focused too solely on Army spouses. It confused me, being that the author's husband is a Navy Chaplain serving with the Marine Corps. She definitely should have included Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force spouses in this book. And the whole situation with the one wife conspiring to get her husband out of the Army and speaking at anti-war protests was unbelievable. It's one thing to not agree with a war, but it's another thing to protest what your husband does for a living. All in all, I give this book 3 stars- it's a bit confusing at times, since it jumps around a lot. But I recommend it for a spouse who is new to military life, especially an Army spouse.
**Until they all come home**
A Moving Account of Deployment Issues for Those Left Behind.......2007-05-13
I was looking for information on deployment and got so much more from Kristin Henderson's book! Moving, emotional, real-life accounts that touch the heart and help us civilians better comprehend the challenges of wartime delpoyment. Kristin interviews a variety of spouses and 'significant others' recounting their respective experiences, all with very different perspectives.
It's definitely a book that you won't put down until the last chapter is read!
Not what I was expecting.......2007-04-15
After reading so many wonderful reviews for this book, I felt that I needed to read it. My husband is currently deployed and I'm always looking for related books.
As I got further and further into the book I found I was increasingly disappointed. The book is very scattered - to the point of frequent confusion. While the stories of the women are very touching and easy to relate to, I found it difficult to keep all the the details for each story together because of the nature in which the book was written. Henderson does a good job of working through the policies of the Army, though again it was so scattered and frequently interjected in the middle of a story.
While the stories of the women are well told, I was disappointed that the aspect of being a wife with no children was practically ignored. Yes, one of the characters is childless, but Henderson didn't discuss that dynamic and that disappointed me. Not every military spouse has children, childless spouses face different (and hard) challenges because of that.
All in all it wasn't a bad book, but I wasn't as impressed with it as some of the other reviewers.
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- All American Ads - 20s
- Back to the past
- Best of series, typographically speaking...
- Good for stealing from
- I just couldn't resist this one...
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All-american Ads of the 20s (Midi Series)
Jim Heimann
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Similar Items:
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All-American Ads 1900-1919 (Midi S.)
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The Golden Age of Advertising - The 60s
ASIN: 3822825115 |
Amazon.com
Taschen's legendary decade-by-decade chronicle of American advertising hits a high point in the book on the 1920s. Its hundreds of coruscatingly colorful Jazz Age advertisements, superbly reproduced on practically bulletproof paper, add up to an irresistible question: why stay this side of paradise when the new consumer culture can send you to heaven right now? Just look up: apple-cheeked cherubs bear steaming flapjacks to a beaming sleeper; fluffy, angel-like Michelin tire men ply the skies; the Certainteed building-supplies giant (a sort of Australopithecus Jolly Green Giant) throws his head back against billowing cumulonimbus clouds. Cecil B. de Mille's poster for his 1933 tsunami-disaster film The Deluge can't match the grandiosity of some of these ads for the humblest household products.
After a short but sweet introductory essay by New York Times designer Steven Heller, editor Jim Heimann organizes the ads by subject: consumer products, fashion and beauty, entertainment, travel, etc. It's gripping to watch sex and status try to outdo each other in selling 1920s cars: the snooty Pierce Arrow associates itself with wealthy Century Club types, while the Ford Fordor stresses the populist $660 price and the flapper struggling to keep the wind from whipping her perilously brief hem over her head. High art rears its lovely head in ads for the Marmon Big 8 racer, powered by a 125-horsepower engine and a lightninglike look derived from Futurist art. Most ads range in a safer esthetic region bounded by retro-Currier & Ives, zesty art deco, and the funny papers. Fear is a great motivator: hunky Marvin loses the girls to halitosis; classy dames subtly judge each other on the quality of the ScotTissue in the bathroom: "Women sense it immediately!" The ads featuring black people fascinatingly demonstrate that even the era's most talented artists couldn't draw blacks because they literally could not see them when they looked at them. This book is a must for any serious student of pop culture—or anybody out for a graphic good time. --Tim Appelo
Book Description
The dawn of American consumerism
Prohibition made liquor illegal and all the more fun to drink. Speakeasies, luxury cars, women's liberation, bathtub gin and a booming economy kept the country's mood on the up-and-up. Women sheared off their locks and taped their chests, donning flapper dresses and dancing the Charleston until their legs gave out. Gangsters flourished in big cities and gangster movies flourished in Hollywood. It was the roaring twenties in America: a singular time in history, a lull between two world wars and the last gas before the nation's descent into the Great Depression. Forging the way into the future like a modern streamliner in a sea of antiquity, advertising in the 20s sought to bring avant-garde into the mainstream—which it did with great success.
Customer Reviews:
All American Ads - 20s.......2007-07-03
Very typical of this series, plenty of fascinating glossy magazine ads that capture the period as well as anything can. A really impressive series; I've got just about all of them. This one is more foreign than the others since it's period is now bordering on history, rather than just nostalgia.
Back to the past.......2007-05-15
At that time photography was not used in commercials. Beautifully ilustrated and full in text this book a real back to American Life Style in the 20's, throught products that made that age.
Best of series, typographically speaking..........2005-10-11
Lots of hand drawn type. The pictures are happier and more whimsical than the 30's or 40's.
If you're into copying type, don't bother with the 60's -- the type is really boring. The 20's has one has everything from campy to elegant type... I'm looking forward to the release of the 00's-10's (turn of the century).
Good for stealing from.......2005-07-29
As an illustrator and graphic designer I have found this book to be an excellent resource for stealing and pilfering. When I need a typeface, a logo, a color combination or even the layout of the page, Ads of the 20's can't be beat. What was so great about that decade in design? Who knows. But one thing is for sure: it's heck better than the trash on the pages of magazines and catalogues these days.
I just couldn't resist this one..........2005-05-01
I finally caved in and bought this volume in the _All-American Ads_ series, and now I'm going to have to buy the others. I'm doomed.
I'm in love with this book, and there's a lot to love about it. The production values are outstanding--the colors are brilliant, the images as crisp as they can be, and the selection of ads is wonderfully varied. It's a visual treat--Taschen has done it again.
If I do have one complaint, it is that the emphasis is on full-page, full-color ads. While I am a painter and find this book a visual delight (the colors! Oh, joy!), I'm also a geeky cultural historian. I've looked at a lot of magazines from the period--enough to know that some of the most telling ads about the anxieties, attitudes and preoccupations of the time aren't the largest, most sophisticated, or visually striking ones. But since this book has been produced primarily as a showcase for graphic design of the period, and not by hopeless history nerds, I have no trouble giving it five stars.
Book Description
When Confederate men marched off to battle, southern women struggled with the new responsibilities of directing farms and plantations, providing for families, and supervising increasingly restive slaves. Drew Faust offers a compelling picture of the more than half-million women who belonged to the slaveholding families of the Confederacy during this period of acute crisis, when every part of these women's lives became vexed and uncertain. Faust chronicles the clash of the old and the new within a group that was at once the beneficiary and the victim of the social order of the Old South.
Customer Reviews:
Roots of the "lost cause" mentality.......2007-07-31
Faust does not try to hide her sympathy for these women or admiration for those who were resourceful, nor does she pull any punches in revealing their selfishness. The point of the book, however, was not to solicit sympathy for upper class white women, but to illuminate their influence on the outcome of the war and on the mind of the south as it evolved after the war. The ladies deserve much of the credit--and blame--for the "lost cause" mentality that holds sway with many Southerners still today. For that insight alone we owe a great debt to Drew Gilpin Faust.
Academic But Still Interesting.......2006-07-13
Mothers of Invention is a very academic analysis of the impact of the civil war on the notions of role and gender long held by the upper class women of the old south. It rocked their world, that's for sure and it sounds as if they surely needed it. It is based on the contents of letters and diaries written by elite aristocratic women whose biggest concern about the war was that they were unable to attend social functions or obtain silk and satin for their dresses. Or that their husbands would die and not come back and restore their former way of life.
The subject of this book is a single class of women - rich, white, spoiled and utterly despicible. These women complainted bitterly of how the war effected their miserable self centered lives with little concern about the effects the war had on those who fought it and what they were experiencing. The war meant little more to them than a threat to their way of life.
Ms. Faust tries to portray her subjects as victims and prisoners of their circumstances but these women were anything but. They embraced the supposed chains that bound them and had little concern for the profound and widespread pain and suffering caused for millions of others as a result of the war they so glamorized and romanticized.
This book is rather tedious if you are not a fan nor speaker of that odd language known as academia (why in the world does she include long diary and letter passages in French?) But it has some very good moments and will give the reader new insight into how truly horrid those magnolia queens really were. Not even a feminist writer sympathetic to anything in petticoats can hide that fact; as much as she tries.
Well organized, but seems to be missing some material.......2005-03-06
The first thing to know when you pick up this book, is that first, it deals basically only with diaries and letters, and that probably only a woman interested in the history of women would be interested. The entire book is very...well, womanly. I did enjoy what I learned about Southern women (and believe me, it is ONLY slaveholding woman, as the title suggests), but I couldn't help but ask why Faust did not ever mention anybody over the age of about 30. If they don't have any records of any diaries of older women, she should have said so, because I was wondering about it the entire time. Basically it only covers how women felt about their husbands being gone (wanting protection, resorting to writing as comfort, scared about slave uprisings, etc) but hardly anything was said about SONS being gone. Where were they? And only a little bit more was said about fathers being gone. Over all, I did learn about women during the Civil War from the South, but only a very small portion of them. I would probably only recommend this book as an asset to research about women in the 19th century, or to anyone who wonders what else was going on in the country apart from the war.
Good, but a bit misleading.......2004-11-05
Reading this book, I got the impression that the author buys into the impression most people have of pre-war Southern women - the vapid Southern belle who basically did nothing until the war began, then suddenly she had to run the plantation. Not true! If one reads diaries and letters of the period, the daily running of the home was left to the women - managing the slaves (if the family owned any). Women handled a good deal more of the marketing and financial running of farms, especially, than is generally believed. Perhaps women weren't involved in politics, but the backbone of southern life was the home and that was the woman's province. Women proved their capability before and during the war by managing the homefront. As for refugees - the tales told by thousands of women who were forced to flee their homes are far in excess of the numbers suggested by the author. The worst atrocity of the war - the hundreds of women captured by the Union in Roswell, Georgia - is ignored. The author also suggests that support for the war by southern women waned as it went on, another questionable fact in light of the many diaries of the period and the tremendous outpouring of grief at the surrender. Most women couldn't bear to record the end of the Confederacy in their diaries and surviving letters are filled with bitterness. Still, this book is an excellent researcher. Also recommend Juanita Leisch's books on "Civil War Civilians" and "Who Wore What" although her fashion research should be taken with a grain of salt as it is theory only based on a sampling of period photos.
Excellent overview of elite women's Civil War experience.......2002-11-21
In "Mothers of Invention," Drew Gilpin Faust explores the ways in which the Civil War transformed traditional gender roles among middle- and upper-class southern women. Gilpin theorizes that Confederate women certainly were aware of the effect that government policies had on their lives-even if the leaders, at times, were not-and that women's views conscription, home defense, economic production and slavery influenced and, ultimately, undermined their support for the war.
Her key point seems to be that the war overturned the "social contract" in which elite women accepted subordination and dependence for male protection and privilege. Although men were off protecting their homes in the abstract sense, women were left to deal with the day-to-day realities of food shortages and an invading army occupying their homes.
Narrowing exceptions to the draft, the military's refusals to grant furloughs in times of great family need, and government policies regarding food requisitions especially galled women. Faust puts a particularly interesting gender perspective on the draft exemption for those owning 20+ slaves. Normally, this exemption is viewed solely in class terms: "Rich man's war, poor man's fight." Faust, however, brings attention to the fear that white women experienced being left alone to manage large slave populations without a man's help. Women feared murder and uprisings from a slave population that was growing increasingly rebellious. The priority ultimately given to equitably treating draft-age white men and the burden of managing slaves led to a decline in women's support for the slave system and for the Confederacy, she argues.
In addition to slave management, Faust explores other ways in which the war caused elite white women to step into traditional male roles. From the very beginning, secession and the war led to much greater involvement by women in the public sphere. Although politics had been considered the province of men, secession was a topic that no one could stop discussing-women included. The banding together of women to support the war effort also proved a new experience for southern women. Unlike their northern sisters, southern women typically had not been involved in social organizations before the war.
Faust's book includes a fascinating discussion about attitudes toward the refugee experience. In particular, she notes that becoming a refugee was the civilian equivalent of buying a substitute for the draft. A refugee, the term implied, had the money and connections to make a planned departure from home-often to protect property. In support of this view, she cites the diary of Mary Lee of Winchester, who disdained the term refugee in favor of "displaced person" to describe those fleeing with little in the face of the enemy.
"Mothers of Invention" contains one of the most interesting analyses of the hoop skirt that I have seen. Faust notes that the trend for full skirts, ultimately supported by hoops, coincided with the Victorian ideals of domesticity and women's separate sphere. The caged crinoline or hoop offered women a portable enclosed private space and the wide skirts symbolized a circle in which women were protected. In an era where upper-class women's sexuality was repressed, the style also hid and reformed female anatomy. The conspicuous consumption of fabric and the difficulty performing physical labor in these skirts made a class statement as well.
"Mothers of Invention" provides a good overview of the different ways that the war affected southern women's lives, including changes within the household, relations between husbands and wives, paid employment outside the home, the likelihood that young women would remain single due to the deaths of so many young men, religious views on the war, increased educational opportunities for women, dealing with Yankee men, etc. Her accessible writing style and use of interesting quotes and numerous pictures make this a relatively quick read. The book is well-organized with subheadings that make locating important points quite easy.
For those interested in exploring the southern woman's war experience, this book would be a good starting point for gaining some good general knowledge. Readers should keep in mind, however, that Faust is focusing on elite and middle-class women, and that the experiences and attitudes she describes do not reflect the lives of lower-class women.
Book Description
In the wake of Abu Ghraib, Americans have struggled to understand what happened in the notorious prison and why. In this elegant series of essays, inflected with a radical Catholic philosophy, David Griffith contends that society's shift from language to image has changed the way people think about violence and cruelty, and that a disconnect exists between images and reality. Griffith meditates on images and literature, finding potent insight into what went wrong at the prison in the works of Susan Sontag, Anthony Burgess, and especially Flannery O’Connor, who often explored the gulf between proclamations of faith and the capacity for evil. Accompanying the essays are illustrated facts about torture, lists of torture methods and their long-term effects, and graphics such as the schematics of the “pain pathways” in the human body. Together, the images and essays endow the human being with the complexity images alone deny.
Customer Reviews:
Who, How and What We Are.......2006-10-12
Truth in reviewing: I am acquainted with the author of this book, but not acquainted well enough to have known what it would be. I actually expected a novel; we get one writer's reckoning of how America reached the point where its own were humiliating and torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib apparently for kicks. This is not political spin, it is thoughtful moral discourse, the kind of critical thinking that has gone missing for a long, long time.
When the news and photographs from Abu Ghraib hit the radar, they were quickly packaged and trimmed down to a focus on Michael Graner, Lynndie England and one or two other "bad apples." In fact, Griffith reminds us, the original photographs showed more soldiers along the edges of the sensational activities, appearing casual and even indifferent. The "bad apples" were part of the pack and that pack, Griffith finds in an exploration of American character, are us.
In a series of essays illustrated with deliberately grainy reproductions of the images he discusses, Griffith sorts through American history, his own experiences growing up Catholic as well as close readings of the ideas and works of Flannery O'Connor and Andy Warhol, among others, to probe the psycho-social roots of violence in a land so many argue was founded on Christian teachings. The territory he travels is at once familiar and all new, and what he reveals is sobering. Griffith's voice is engaging, which makes this difficult trip doable, even when he is showing us the ironic complexities of everyday life.
sublime realities.......2006-09-15
This is a text that when you set it down stays with you. Seemingly disperate events/artifacts from american culture are drawn together abu ghraib becomes only more disturbing. When i opened this book i was disgusted by those images but had a flurry of emotions attributed to them more than anythign else. Now, I am compelled to investigate further how abu ghraib is an expected event for where we are as a people. So, you leave this book knowing that every individual, yourself included, is to blame for abu ghraib, but therefore empowered to prevent it from reoccuring.
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Faces of Time: 75 Years of Time Magazine Cover Portraits
National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian Institution)
Manufacturer: Bulfinch Press
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United States
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ASIN: 0821224980 |
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Wow!.......2003-09-17
I bought this book for my classroom and wondered later why I picked it up. When I really looked through the book, I found some really great art focusing on important personas from the 20th Century. It is a really nice book to have. A keepsake.
Summary.......1999-12-12
'Celebrating Time's 75th anniversary, this book presents work commissioned for the magazine's cover by some of the century's best-known artists, ranging from Andrew Wyeth's portrait of Dwight Eisenhower to Andy Warhol's Michael Jackson.This book presents seventy-five artworks commissioned for the magazine's covers by some of the century's best-known artists, from Dwight Eisenhower by Andrew Wyeth to Michael Jackson by Andy Warhol. Faces of TIME accompanied an exhibition organized by the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D. C. Among the outstanding covers reproduced are Roy Lichtenstein's dynamic 1968 image of Bobby Kennedy, Ben Shahn's Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gerald Scarfe's papier-mache caricatures of the Beatles. Jay Leno relates his feelings - and his mother's reaction - to being pictured on the cover of TIME. Frederick S. Voss provides a visual history of the magazine and shows how making it onto the cover of TIME has come to be the ultimate accolade.' - From The Publisher
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The Good Old Days: America : The Forties and the Fifties
Manufacturer: Time-Life Books
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Binding: Hardcover
1945 - Present
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ASIN: 0783548451 |
Book Description
The War in American Culture explores the role of World War II in the transformation of American social, cultural, and political life.
World War II posed a crisis for American culture: to defeat the enemy, Americans had to unite across the class, racial and ethnic boundaries that had long divided them. Exploring government censorship of war photography, the revision of immigration laws, Hollywood moviemaking, swing music, and popular magazines, these essays reveal the creation of a new national identity that was pluralistic, but also controlled and sanitized. Concentrating on the home front and the impact of the war on the lives of ordinary Americans, the contributors give us a rich portrayal of family life, sexuality, cultural images, and working-class life in addition to detailed consideration of African Americans, Latinos, and women who lived through the unsettling and rapidly altered circumstances of wartime America.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating Collection of 13 different articles.......2005-12-07
This book is a must-read, despite the fact that there are thousands of histories written about the Second World War. Its thirteen chapters discuss different topics, so there is something for everybody, and every essay is meticulously crafted, making them both delightful and simple to read. This book provides an insight into World War II that few other books are able to provide because of the wide-scope of the thirteen essays, yet all of the essays revolve around a central theme which makes this paper useful in studies, yet provocative and interesting.
Viewed by many as "the last good war," World War II smashed Nazism, and resulted in a clear-cut victory for America which became the richest nation on earth. However, this book stomps out the idea of the last good war by bringing attention to the irony that while Americans were fighting a war on inequality abroad, they had their own home-front war to wage on race, gender and ethnic relations. Erenberg and Hirsch's book is a collection of thirteen different articles that provide insight into American culture during the World War II within a variety of contexts ranging from censorship to swing and zoot suits to privacy.
The first part of the book, titled "The Quest for National Unity" contains three articles and is, by far, my favorite section. The essay by Perry R. Duis examines the war's effect on privacy in Chicago. He interestingly points-out that for the first time, Americans' homes were invaded by strangers who, in the case of disaster, needed to know the basic lay-out of every home and a detailed description of the family members and their schedules in the unfortunate event of a necessary rescue. George H. Roeder Jr.'s article takes readers on a fascinating ride through formerly censored photographs as he explains what was censored during the war and why. This article shows readers how the American government strictly controlled public opinion during the war and even gives readers a peek into photographs that somehow made it past the watchful eye of the censors. Lary May's article examines how the film industry supported ethnic pluralism and utopian ideals during the war, and is certain to introduce key players like Frank Capra and his Why We Fight series. One of his primary examples is Lifeboat, a movie that portrayed European immigrants as full Americans.
The remainder of the book provides insight into varying experiences of American minorities, including women, Japanese and Chinese-Americans, African-Americans, Mexican-Americans and Native Americans. The most fascinating aspect of Erenberg and Hirsch's book is that some essays examine the different minorities as a micro-history, while others do a comprehensive study.
Book Description
In a substantial new afterword to his classic account of the collapse of American triumphalism in the wake of World War II, Tom Engelhardt carries that story into the twenty-first century. He explores how, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the younger George Bush headed for the Wild West (Osama bin Laden, "Wanted, Dead or Alive"); how his administration brought "victory culture" roaring back as part of its Global War on Terror and its rush to invade Saddam Hussein's Iraq; and how, from its "Mission Accomplished" moment on, its various stories of triumph crashed and burned in that land.
Customer Reviews:
Nice and easy.......2007-08-31
Nice and easy - I was very pleased with the service and timelyness. Plus the book is in great condition
Book Review: "The End of Victory Culture : Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation".......2006-04-10
American "triumphalism" and the American "war story" began its decline after WWII and collapsed completely after Vietnam (or so the author thought). The victory myth is constructed out of an America history that has its roots in the Puritan struggle. The US had always fought against the evil oppressors of freedom, democracy, and the freedom of peaceful worship. The myth of American triumph was part of 1950s "boy culture" and was depicted on screen in the justifiable slaughter of Indians on the western frontier; cowboys and /or Cavalrymen who rescued families and females from savages; science-fiction and vengeance movies, and eventually in galactic villians and Evil Empires. War stories and movies consumed by Baby Boomers vindicated the annihilation of (usually non-white but always non-American) villains.
Central to the maintenance of the victory culture in American is the "war story" a tale in which there is an evil Other who threatens the United States. Contributing to the end of victory culture was the almost immediate reevaluation of the atomic bombing of Japan after WWII; an event that left the United States looking more terrifying than protective . The Cold War followed the euphoric victory of WWII . In the Cold War there was no victory or defeat; and the enemy and self became blurred and threatened to merge. Many of the villains in the Cold War were other Americans; rather than victory, the US sought containment. Then came Korea, a failed police action, better off forgotten. The Vietnam War was a disaster. Even the president lost enthusiasm for a battle where there appeared to be no definable enemy. Even the sacred cowboy was attacked as racist during the d?nouement of the victory culture. New westerns depicted sociopathic bad guys in cowboy hats rampaging around the West hunting down innocent Indians. In the late 1960s, even military toys were transformed into action figures. "Boy culture" was not recaptured until Ronald Reagan appeared on the scene with his Star Wars rhetoric. George H. W. Bush seized on the opportunity to eliminate the evil dictator Saddam Hussein; only to have his efforts to win a "war to re-establish war, American style" and capture the bad guy fail.
Engelhardt is an active journalist and writer who was surprised in 2000 when the United States elected George W. Bush President. Geroge W. Bush, he says, is a man "who had stayed way too long in those dark movie theaters" watching cowboys and Indians; a man who managed to evade both sides of the Vietnam War debate; a man who glories in the victory clture and wants to relive a period in American history when bugles blared, crowds cheered, and flags waved. In The End of Victory Culture Engelhardt failed to predict that 2005 would see a US President whose dream is to "dress up like G.I. Joe, [and] appear in front of massed ranks of soldiers chanting "hoo-rah," and assure the crowd he was going to bring `em back dead or alive (tomdispatch.com). This book's value is in its examination of the impact of popular culture in shaping public perceptions of the US and its place in the world. Sources include popular culture products such as Mad magazine, TV shows, monster movies, and westerns. Tom Engelhardt graduated from Yale University; he is a book editor and a freelance journalist. He maintains a website, www.tomdispatch.com; is co-founder of the American Empire Project; a consulting editor at Metropolitan Books; a fellow of the Nation Institute; and lecturer at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley.
one of my favorites..........2006-03-23
With the outcome in Iraq still uncertain more than 3 years after the U.S. led invasion, many people have blamed the media for not being critical enough at the outset of the war. Additionally, as the war rages on, comparisons to Vietnam are becoming especially noticeable as a growing number of people continue to question our involvement in Iraq.
These two relatively recent phenomena of questioning the media's role in wartime and the tendency for U.S citizens to be skeptical of their government during war took root during the Vietnam war.
According to Tom Englehardt in "The End of Victory Culture," prior to Vietnam the media played a key role in perpetuating the idea of a noble and just United States battling savages of color including Native Americans and Japanese soldiers in World War II.
The public eagerly imbibed this "victory culture," regularly attending movies featuring John Wayne defending America by battling Indians; playing games like "cowboys and indians;" and reading cartoons featuring horribly caricatured Japanese and Chinese soldiers, never questioning the integrity of the government or doubting United States policies.
A seismic shift occured during Vietnam when, for the first time, Americans became especially frustrated over a war that could no longer be justified by statements from the President. Demonstrations raged throughout the country as the once sacred tenants of U.S. heroism and leadership were shattered.
During this time, the media's role transformed as well. Rather than mindlessly trumpeting American nobility, the media worked doggedly to unearth the truth. David Halberstam's coining of the term "quagmire" when referring to war and Morley Saffert's piece revealing the horrible killings of helpless Vietnamese villagers are just two examples that Englehardt cites.
Although accounts from Vietnam and World War II comprise the bulk of Englehardt's thesis, he provides copious examples of the movies and excerpts from television programs when talking about the 1980's in an effort to further demonstrate the dismantling of the "victory culture."
Brilliantly written and extremely well documented, Englehardt has written a gem of a book that remains as relevant today as it was 11 years ago when it was first published.
A different perspective on post-war culture and history.......2006-03-07
Tom Engelhardt's dense but throughly readable cultural history presents the past fifty-six years of American history as an investigation of narrative. A common theme in analysis of nationalism and nationality is the concept of an historical narrative that members of a nationality look to for explaining their present position within their world. Engelhardt investigates a time period that saw, as he argues, a violent uprooting and reconfiguration of the American cultural narrative.
This narrative makes use of a wide ranging set of metpahors and images, such as the frontier and its mythology of American innocence, that have helped Americans understand their position within a complex and ever changing world. World War II provided the last war in which the innocence of America was posited with little debate (although the dropping of the atom bomb indeed challenged this innocence).
The beginning of the cold war and military endeavors in Korea and Viet Nam saw a gradual erroding of this narrative of innocence. As the enemy became harder to identify, at times even looking like ourselves in the case of anti-communism, the moral clarity and absolute innocence of American military actions disolved. Engelhardt takes a sweeping view of the last half-century of American history and tracks the profound shift in narrative and cultural understanding that we are still dealing with. It would be interesting to see what Engelhardt would say about September 11th. I would argue it has restored much of America's innocence, allowing us to attack Iraq with little domestic objection.
Engelhardt writes with an engaging voice helping to make what could be a tedious read quite enjoyable. At times his ideas can be difficult to connect, making this a book to be tackled as quickly as possible so that the plethora of information and full scope of the analysis can be engaged without loosing what was written in earlier pages. Do not expect any sort of 'traditional' work of history. This is for the students of American culture and anyone interested in the intricacies and complexities of the American identity. When you read this book, to a large extent you are learning about yourself.
Good on Media, Bad on History.......2005-09-12
Although he provides an in depth analysis of the modern media's role creating stereotypes of "non-whites", he actually attempts to say that this was the primary motivater to fight our "enemies" for centuries. This, of course, is nonsense. The Revolutionary War, Barbary Wars, War of 1812, World War I, and a large portion of World War II against the Rome-Berlin part of the Axis were against "white" people. And I'm probably missing other major conflicts.
Further, to say that America is unique among countries in using color or ethnicity to denigrate a people it is either at war with or has hostility towards is totally absurd. It's par for the course throughout the history of warfare and culture as a way to motivate its people to carry out and tolerate the acts of war. Unfortunately, he lets his biased political opinions biasedly spill into the pages of his book.
Nevertheless, he does an excellent job describing the power of the media to work as the Government's collective propaganda machine in their portrayal of the "eastern bloc" countries as the Cold War rose from the end of World War II.
Book Description
A series of essays about the social, political, and intellectual dimensions of the Revolutionary War
Customer Reviews:
A good read for the dedicated military historian.......2001-03-02
This book is not meant for the casual reader. However, if you are a serious history buff and don't mind engaging a book intellectually this is a good book to spend some time with. I had the pleasure of having John Shy as a professor at the University of Michigan. I have nothing but positive feedback on his scholarly work. The somewhat narrow scope of the book's topic and the assumed background knowledge might deter a casual reader. History buff who wants to dig deeper into Revolutionary War issues? Then this book is a good one to pick up!
Interesting Read...must have for any Military History buffs.......2000-11-13
This was a nice collection of intelligent and well written essays on the American Revolution. I chose this book based on a recommendation from my history teacher. It was a requirement to write a book review on it.
This book contains a great amount of information on the American Revolution. The author seems to have done much pain-staking research to bring details to life. Unlike a traditional history book, this book focuses on specific aspects of the Revolution. It brings to light much of went on militaristically and socially on both sides of the ocean during that time. If you have ever wanted to know more about the American Revolution then what you learn in College or High School US History, this book is a must have. It is written on an academic level and requires a high degree of English comprehension.
Overall an enjoyable experience.
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