New York: Oxford University Press, Reviewed by H. The concluding chapter of Susan A. Brewer guides the reader through the major U. The decision to send troops to fight overseas invariably provoked public debate about both the wisdom of going to war and the extent to which the purpose and conduct of the war lived up to national ideals. To contend with dissent, potential and actual, U.
To this end, the state has taken advantage of its role as the source of official information and its power to censor the news. The mass media, the author finds, has historically abetted rather than impeded government propaganda campaigns.
However, this idea neither survived the war, nor was it resurrected in subsequent conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. These limited conflicts, unlike the total mobilization of , required relatively fewer contributions or sacrifices, and as Brewer observes, less civic participation.
Susan A. Brewer has written a vitally important book for our times. Starting with the Spanish-American War of the late nineteenth century and ending with America's first wars of the twenty-first century, she covers American propaganda campaigns in the most significant conflicts spanning over a century of U. Her overall findings are not all that surprising, but they are still important and worth repeating: in each conflict Americans were misled and misinformed, sometimes even lied to in an outright manner.
The metanarrative of twentieth-century U. It was also flexible enough to adjust with slight variation to each specific war scenario: liberty versus autocracy during World War I, democracy versus dictatorship in World War II, and freedom versus tyranny during the Cold Most users should sign in with their email address.
If you originally registered with a username please use that to sign in. To purchase short term access, please sign in to your Oxford Academic account above. Don't already have an Oxford Academic account? Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Sign In or Create an Account.
Sign In. Advanced Search. Search Menu. Article Navigation. Impressively researched and argued, filled with surprising details, Why America Fights shows how presidents have consistently drummed up support for foreign wars by appealing to what Americans want to believe about themselves.
An H-net review and a n interview with the author have been published. Bookmark the permalink. Loading Comments
0コメント