Stacey Peebles
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801449468
- eISBN:
- 9780801460944
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801449468.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
Our collective memories of World War II and Vietnam have been shaped as much by memoirs, novels, and films as they have been by history books. This book examines the growing body of contemporary war ...
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Our collective memories of World War II and Vietnam have been shaped as much by memoirs, novels, and films as they have been by history books. This book examines the growing body of contemporary war stories in prose, poetry, and film that speak to the American soldier’s experience in the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War. Stories about war always encompass ideas about initiation, masculinity, cross-cultural encounters, and trauma. The book shows us how these timeless themes find new expression among a generation of soldiers who have grown up in a time when it has been more acceptable than ever before to challenge cultural and societal norms, and who now have unprecedented and immediate access to the world away from the battlefield through new media and technology. Two Gulf War memoirs provide a portrait of soldiers living and fighting on the cusp of the major political and technological changes that would begin in earnest just a few years later. The Iraq War, a much longer conflict, has given rise to more and various representations. Books and other media emerging from the conflicts in the Gulf have yet to receive the kind of serious attention that Vietnam War texts received during the 1980s and 1990s. The book provokes much discussion among those who wish to understand today’s war literature and films and their place in the tradition of war representation more generally.Less
Our collective memories of World War II and Vietnam have been shaped as much by memoirs, novels, and films as they have been by history books. This book examines the growing body of contemporary war stories in prose, poetry, and film that speak to the American soldier’s experience in the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War. Stories about war always encompass ideas about initiation, masculinity, cross-cultural encounters, and trauma. The book shows us how these timeless themes find new expression among a generation of soldiers who have grown up in a time when it has been more acceptable than ever before to challenge cultural and societal norms, and who now have unprecedented and immediate access to the world away from the battlefield through new media and technology. Two Gulf War memoirs provide a portrait of soldiers living and fighting on the cusp of the major political and technological changes that would begin in earnest just a few years later. The Iraq War, a much longer conflict, has given rise to more and various representations. Books and other media emerging from the conflicts in the Gulf have yet to receive the kind of serious attention that Vietnam War texts received during the 1980s and 1990s. The book provokes much discussion among those who wish to understand today’s war literature and films and their place in the tradition of war representation more generally.
