Full-text resources of CEJSH and other databases are now available in the new Library of Science.
Visit https://bibliotekanauki.pl

PL EN


2018 | 9 "Memory, Melancholy and Nostalgia" | 9-20

Article title

“It’s a War I Still Would Go To”: The American War in Vietnam and Nostalgic Re-Imaginings of World War II

Content

Title variants

Conference

4th International Interdisciplinary Memory Conference “Memory, Melancholy and Nostalgia” (17-18 Semptember, 2015 in Gdansk)

Languages of publication

EN

Abstracts

EN
In this article, I trace the process through which World War II (WWII) has become the „good war” in American culture. Drawing on a range of books and articles published on the subject —and often written by the war’s veterans—I summarize their findings considering the essentially mythical nature of the conflict’ common memory. The well-known aspects of this myth include the view that WWII was a straightforward struggle between good and evil, that the U.S. soldiers who fought it belonged to “the greatest generation,” and that it was ultimately an expression and activization of American honor, heroism, and gallantry. Further on, I argue that beginning in the 1980s, a resurgence of cultural interest in WWII becomes evident, but now tinged not only with the emerging image of “the good war,” but also with nostalgia—and that the “nostalgization” of the conflict was caused directly by, and indeed possible only because of, the U.S. experience in Vietnam. I trace the multifaceted and multiple references to WWII in Vietnam War narratives—but also to Vietnam in some nostalgic representations of WWII.

Contributors

  • University of Silesia in Katowice (Poland), Institute of English Cultures and Literatures

References

  • Adams Michael C.C. 1993. The Best War Ever. America and World War II. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
  • Anderegg Michael. 1991. Hollywood and Vietnam. John Wayne and Jane Fonda as Discourse, 19-28. In: Michael Anderegg, ed. Inventing Vietnam. The War in Film and Television. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.
  • Ambrose Stephen E. 2001. Band of Brothers. E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle Nest. London: Pocket Books.
  • Basinger Jeanine. 2003. The World War II Combat Film. Anatomy of a Genre. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.
  • Beattie Keith. 1998. The Scar That Binds. American Culture and the Vietnam War. New York and London: New York University Press.
  • Brokaw Tom. 1998. The Greatest Generation. New York: Random House.
  • Bronfen Elisabeth. 2012. Specters of War. Hollywood’s Engagement with Military Conflict. New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press.
  • Caputo Philip.1985. A Rumor of War. London: Arrow Books.
  • Fussell Paul. 1989. Wartime. Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Fussell Paul. 2005. The Boys’ Crusade. American G.I.s in Europe: Chaos and Fear in World War Two. London: Phoenix.
  • Hagopian, Patrick. 2011. The Vietnam War in American Memory. Veterans, Memorials, and the Politics of Healing. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press.
  • Hallin Daniel C. 1986. The “Uncensored War.” The Media and Vietnam. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Herzog Tobey C. 2005. Vietnam War Stories. Innocence Lost. London: Taylor and Francis.
  • Hynes Samuel. 1992. “War Stories: Myths of World War II.” The Sewanee Review 100 (1): 98-104.
  • Katzman Jason. 2000. From Outcast to Cliché: How Film Shaped, Warped and Developed the Image of the Vietnam Veteran 1967-1990, 219-231. In: Walter L. Hixson, ed. Historical Memory and Representations of the Vietnam War. New York: Garland Publishing.
  • Kinzer Stephen. 2014. “The Truth Behind the Tinted World War II Memories.” Online: https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/09/27/world-war-not-lens-view-wars-through/WQQNq0dnHmxZSzmCrDwiiI/story.html. Accessed: January 27, 2016.
  • Kirsch Adam. 2011. “Is World War II Still the ‘Good War’?” Online: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/books/review/adam-kirsch-on-new-books-about-world-war-ii.html. Accessed January 30, 2016.
  • Lembcke Jerry. 1998. The Spitting Image. Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam. New York and London: New York University Press.
  • MacPherson Myra. 1988. Long Time Passing. Vietnam and the Haunted Generation. London: Sceptre.
  • Moeller Susan. 1989. Shooting War. Photography and the American Experience of Combat. New York: Basic Books, Inc.
  • Musiał Aleksandra. 2013. “John Wayne(s) in Vietnam: The Chaning Represntations and Victimization of the American Soldier in the Cinematic and Literary Narratives of the Indochina War.” Zeszyty naukowo-dydaktyczne (2013/2014): 127-136.
  • O’Shaughnessy Nicholas Jackson. 2004. Politics and Propaganda. Weapons of Mass Seduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  • Pauwels Jacques. 2002. The Myth of the Good War. America in the Second World War. Toronto: James Lorimer & Co.
  • Pratt, John Clark, ed. 1999. Vietnam Voices. Perspectives on the War Years 1941-1971. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
  • Rachman Gideon. “Second World War Nostalgia Led America Astray in Iraq.” Online: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fb9beb1e-0283-11dc-ac32-000b5df10621.html?ft_site=falcon&desktop=true. Accessed January 27, 2016.
  • Rollins Peter C. 1984. “The Vietnam War: Perceptions Through Literature, Film, and Television.” American Quarterly 36 (3): 419-432.
  • Schatz Thomas. 2008. Band of Brothers, 125-134. In: Gary R. Edgerton and Jeffrey P. Jones, eds. The Essential HBO Reader. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.
  • Sturken Marita. The Wall, the Screen, and the Image: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 64-88. In: Walter L. Hixson, ed. Historical Memory and Representations of the Vietnam War. New York: Garland Publishing.
  • Suid Lawrence H. 2002. Guts and Glory. The Making of the American Image in Film. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.
  • Terkel Studs. 1984. “The Good War.” An Oral History of World War Two. New York: Ballantine Books.
  • Torgovnick Marianna. 2005. The War Complex. World War II in Our Time. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
  • Weber Mark. 2008. “The ‘Good War’ Myth of World War II.” Online: http://www.ihr.org/news/weber_ww2_may08.html. Accessed: January 30, 2016.
  • Wood, Jr., Edward. 2006. Worshipping the Myths of World War Two. Reflections on America's Dedication to War. Dulles: Potomac Books.
  • Wood, Jr., Edward. 2011. “Memory and Myth: What Was World War II Really Like?” War, Literature & the Arts. An International Journal of the Humanities 23 (1): 66-71.

Document Type

Publication order reference

YADDA identifier

bwmeta1.element.desklight-5249d355-1ccb-496a-b880-ae789e5c93aa
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.