Abstract
From 1989 through 1995, Americans marked the fiftieth anniversaries of the events of World War II, leading many to reconsider how that war has shaped our national identity. The previous decade, however, had already brought many new publications about the war, including new memoirs and oral histories that questioned and complicated the “Good-War” narrative (see chapter eight). At the same time, conservative historians attempted to revise but preserve that traditional narrative, in part to support the Reagan administration’s increasingly aggressive approach to the Cold War. When the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact ultimately collapsed, American conservatives claimed this as their victory, under Reagan’s leadership, often ignoring other more complex causes, such as the influence of the reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev and the long-term effects of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. In 1991 our country also fought successfully to oust the invading Iraqis from Kuwait. America seemed proud once more of its military strength, and the public memory of our failures in Vietnam had begun to recede, especially for a new, post-Vietnam generation. Thus, a simple victory narrative of the Cold War and the prospect of a “New American Century” were built on the recovered foundation of the “Good-War” narrative of World War II, largely ignoring the complexities and moral ambiguities of both.
Keywords
Saving Private Combat Veteran Pearl Harbor American Soldier Combat ExperiencePreview
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Notes
- 1.Jo Davidsmeyer, Combat!: A Viewer’s Companion to the WWII Series, Revised Edition (Tallevast, FL: Strange New Worlds, 2002), 173.Google Scholar
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