American Samurai: Myth and Imagination in the Conduct of Battle in the First Marine Division 1941-1951

ISBN-13: 9780521441681 / Angielski / Twarda / 1994 / 316 str.

Etc Rondo Cameron; Craig M. Cameron

Opis

This is an innovative approach to military history which specifically links battlefield dynamics of the Pacific War to cultural, social and institutional myth among US marines of the First Division. Although it has elements of each, the book is neither a detailed campaign history nor a traditional unit history. It moves in roughly chronological order, but it is organized thematically to explore how myth and imagination shaped the marines actions. It blends a humanistic approach of letting the actors speak for themselves in letters and memoirs with insights from the social sciences.

Recenzje

"Only the most disinterested reader will fail to be challenged by American Samurai. For this reason alone, Cameron is to be commended and, one hopes, widely read." Social History

Spis treści

List of illustrations, maps and tables; Preface; Introduction: imagery and instrumentality in war; 1. Mythic images of the Marines before Pearl Harbour; 2. Creating Marine - and a masculine deal; 3. Images of the Japanese 'other' defined: guadalcanal and beyond; 4. 'Devil dogs' and 'dogfaces': images of the 'self' in Peleliu; 5. Okinawa: technology empowers ideology; 6. Collapse of the Pacific War images, 1945–1951; 7. Rewriting the war; Notes; Selected bibliography.