Suchergebnisse

This article examines the confluence of national security and racial discourses in a 2006 advertising campaign sponsored by the Project for America Voter Fund that sought to stimulate support for the US occupation of Iraq. Situating the campaign in American foreign relations history,
the article addresses the Fund's criticism of US media coverage of the Iraq war, the media and popular response to the advertisements and the broader argument of war supporters that their views as well as the good news coming out of Iraq were being suppressed. The article also explores the
ways in which a perceived moral calculus concerning the value of US and Iraqi lives was marshalled to revive the crumbling morale of Americans weary of continued warfare. In doing so, it historicizes this discursive strategy, connecting it to the racial politics of past American wars and the
rhetorical appeal of the domino theory, while concomitantly examining the development of its more unique features.

"'We don't seek empires. We're not imperialistic. We never have been. I can't imagine why you'd even ask the question.' So snapped Donald Rumsfeld at a reporter for Al Jazeera in 2003, just weeks after the George W. Bush administration launched its invasion of Iraq. While most scholars speak without hesitation about the United States as an imperial power, much of the American public, like the former secretary of defense, maintains otherwise. Imperialism is a bad word in the American political lexicon--it's something they do, not us. Millions of Americans prefer to see their government's actions abroad as selfless, benevolent, even divinely inspired. This exceptionalist mentality has deep roots, from the humanitarian objectives ascribed to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century continental expansion to the more recent characterizations of the United States as a global policeman tasked with upholding international norms and laws. Imperial Benevolence examines the ways that American popular culture since 9/11 has broadly presented the United States as a global force for good, a reluctant hegemon working to defend human rights and protect or expand democracy from the barbarians determined to destroy it. While there have been notable exceptions, much of popular culture since 9/11 has assumed American innocence. The United States may occasionally appear a bungler, and there can be rogue elements that attempt to undermine the government's official policies, but the basic goodness that drives American foreign relations--its diplomacy, its military interventions, its people-to-people encounters -- rarely gets challenged."--Provided by publisher

Introduction: national amnesia, transnational memory, and the legacies of the Second Indochina War / Scott Laderman and Edwin A Martini -- Legacies foretold : excavating the roots of postwar Viet nam / Ngo Vinh Long -- Viet nam and "Vietnam" in American history and memory / Walter L. Hixson -- "The mainspring in this country has been broken": America's battered sense of self and the emergence of the Vietnam Syndrome / Alexander Bloom -- Cold war in a Vietnamese community / Heonik Kwon -- The ambivalence of reconciliation in contemporary Vietnamese memoryscapes / Christina Schwenkel -- Remembering war, dreaming peace : on cosmopolitanism, compassion, and literature / Viet Thanh Nguyen -- Viet Nam's growing pains : postsocialist cinema development and transnational politics / Mariam B. Lam -- A fishy affair : Vietnamese seafood and the confrontation with U.S. neoliberalism / Scott Laderman -- Agent Orange: coming to terms with a transnational legacy / Diane Niblack Fox -- Refuge to refuse : seeking balance in the Vietnamese environmental imagination / Charles Waugh -- Missing in action in the twenty-first century / H. Bruce Franklin

A set of reviews of Robert K. Brigham's Reckless: Henry Kissinger and the Tragedy of Vietnam, with a response from the author.

Massacres and mass killings have always marked if not shaped the history of the world and as such are subjects of increasing interest among historians. The premise underlying this collection is that massacres were an integral, if not accepted part (until quite recently) of warfare, and that they were often fundamental to the colonizing process in the early modern and modern worlds. Making a deliberate distinction between 'massacre' and 'genocide', the editors call for an entirely separate and new subject under the rubric of 'Massacre Studies', dealing with mass killings that are not genocidal in intent. This volume offers a reflection on the nature of mass killings and extreme violence across regions and across centuries, and brings together a wide range of approaches and case studies

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction: War, the Military, and American Culture / Kieran, David / Martini, Edwin A. -- 1. War and Justice / Conway-Lanz, Sahr -- 2. American Empire / Aune, Stefan -- 3. Domestic Politics and Antiwar Activism / Witham, Nick -- 4. The Military-Industrial Complex / Wilson, Mark R. -- 5. Military Demographics / Mittelstadt, Jennifer -- 6. Combat / Hamner, Christopher -- 7. Veterans and Veterans' Issues / Scott, Wilbur J. -- 8. War, Persecution, and Displacement: U.S. Refugee Policy since 1945 / Lipman, Jana K. -- 9. Race and/in War / Knauer, Christine -- 10. Gender, the Military, and War / Dixon Vuic, Kara -- 11. The Embodiment of War: Bodies for, in, and after War / Kinder, John M. -- 12. War and the Environment / Tucker, Richard P. -- 13. Communications Media, the U.S. Military, and the War Brought Home / Carruthers, Susan L. -- 14. War in Visual Culture / Miller, Bonnie M. -- 15. War and Film / Laderman, Scott -- 16. War and Memory / Piehler, G. Kurt -- 17. Timeline: Major Events in U.S. Military History, 1890–2017 / Ellison, Katherine / Watson, William -- Acknowledgments -- Notes on Contributors -- Index