The War in American Culture: Society and Consciousness during World War II

not a scratch

I'm a historian of years. And here is my perspective. "The American War Culture" is 13 eloquently written essays which look into purposefully distorting a historical fact. WWII was the Good War if there ever was one (beside that of the American Revolution and the American Civil War) where also emerged the notable Greatest Generation of the 20th century. No doubt each essay is fluent in purposefully and academically selecting cited sources to prove its bias in projected investigation, but the book takes great pain and at times in gigantic argumentum leaps in each essay to promote questionable academic criticism. Many of the historical points, statements, and conclusions are twisted, sourced out of context, spherical cited arguments, opinionated conjecture from contemporary mindsets, and positional perceptions from academics with seemingly personal vendettas. It's truly sad how Neo-Marxist history writing styles in revisionism of this climatic history, stenches the rhetoric in each essay. The essays cites 1940's clippings or `sound bite' references and then recites for their elaboration from 1970 to 90's `New Left' historian regurgitation, which from all common understanding the New Left derived their worldview from their revulsions of their Vietnam era experience and personal political views. Without a doubt the essays are elaborately well thought out and its very astonishing how well choreographed each paragraph and page is enticingly played out albeit their not to study the subject but to convert and recruit a consciousness. Blatantly this book attempts to commercially eradicate our factual knowledge in the Americans of that time period, despite their common faults and disunity, who courageously existed and fought during a turbulent time in our American history by contemporary and politically motivated historians bent on such academic writing. Realistically, nothing went perfectly back then like nothing is today and injustices happened and prevented. However the voice and manifesto of this book with all its un-cited contrary examples, `bent' bar charts, flagrant misleading propaganda or "for further reading on the subject read (buy) my other book"...is to conjecture WWII social conscious as being equally manipulated to that of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan, perverses one pop culture to gloss another, articulates race and gender bating and exacerbates American marginalization between ethnicities which deteriorates and detracts in what could have been intriguing essays and an interesting study of American WWII culture and society. The group think mindset of these essays are seeded in the preface of the book which sets the political conscious stage in how to think by fashionable perspective renditions from `contemporary' worldviews in the purposeful premise in condemnation of a very just war. The Authors want to propagate a `what to think' academic view solely for contemptuous and cynical U.S. WWII history and of the American `consciousness' during that time. Enlighten yourself on this fact, if you choose to read this book, that this book's total deliberate focus, its agenda, and in each essay, is not to educate but to `stomp' out the `idea' (whatever that means) of WWII being the good war at all cost despite causes, alternate facts, contrasting insights, or liberal opposition and for that soul reason it is totally corrupt. Truly if there is such a thing as blind patriotic academic historical writing for university students to study and or the novice to read, this book is the testament to sightless degenerative propaganda and the antithesis of the fore mentioned historical method.

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.

The title infers a much broader description/discussion of American culture during WWII. The main emphasis in all chapters is race relations. That is certainly a very important topic, but it was too dominant and repetitive. Having been a child during this period, I wanted to know more about general changes and reactions to those changes. For example, how did people deal with ration coupons? How did various communities support service men stationed there? What was the attitude toward German and Japanese citizens in various parts of the US? Were there demonstrations against the detention camps for Japanese? Was there any spy activity within the US for either the German or Japanese government? How was the New Deal affected by changes in war time policies? The title suggested a much broader coverage of this historical period. Having been born in 1939, I was a part of this history but too young to really get a feel for how American culture was altered; I was curious to find out more.