The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation / Edition 1

by Tom Engelhardt

Overview

In a substantial new afterword to his classic account of the collapse of American triumphalism in the wake of World War II, Tom Engelhardt carries that story into the twenty-first century. He explores how, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the younger George Bush headed for the Wild West (Osama bin Laden, "Wanted, Dead or Alive"); how his administration brought "victory culture" roaring back as part of its Global War on Terror and its rush to invade Saddam Husseins's Iraq; and how, from its "Mission Accomplished" moment on, its various stories of triumph crashed and burned in that land.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558495869
Publisher:	University of Massachusetts Press
Publication date:	07/28/2007
Series:	Culture, Politics and the Cold War Ser.
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	408
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Tom Engelhardt, for fifteen years a senior editor at Pantheon, is now consulting editor at Metropolitan Books, a Fellow of the Nation Institute, and a Teaching Fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley. He is a regular book reviewer and essayist and is also creator and editor of the website Tomdispatch.com.

University of Massachusetts Press

What People are Saying About This

Marilyn Young

A brilliant meditation on the past half-century of the American national story.... Its account of the disintegration of a confident post-World War II national identity is a stunning achievement.

John Dower

An extraordinarily original work that places postwar American history in an entirely new perspective.

Studs Terkel

America Victorious has been our country's postulate since its birth. Tom Engelhardt, with a burning clarity, recounts the end of this fantasy, from the split atom to Vietnam.... As powerful as a Joe Louis jab to the solar plexus.

Todd Gitlin

In this tour de force, Tom Engelhardt tracks the American 'war' story along its declining arc.... Full of brilliancies, this is one of those rare books that can change the way we see.

Editorial Reviews

Engelhardt is absorbing and provocative.... Everything he writes is of a satisfyingly congruent piece.

New York Times

Sets out to trace the vicissitudes of America's self-image since World War II as they showed up in popular culture: war toys, war comics, war reporting, and war films. It succeeds brilliantly.... Engelhardt's prose is smart and smooth, and his book is social and cultural history of a high order.

Boston Globe