The Good War's Greatest Hits PDF Download

Author: Philip D. Beidler
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 9780820320014
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
The glow of 1945 persists as a kind of beacon for American society, symbolic of an era when good and evil were easily defined. This image is at the center of Philip D. Beidler's entertaining look at the way World War II reshaped American popular culture. The legend of the "Good War" was fostered by wartime propaganda and reinforced in the aftermath of victory through books, the news media, movies, songs, and television. Beidler captures the aura of the times as he chronicles the production histories of more than a dozen projects with wartime themes, examining how books and plays evolved into films, how stars were considered and selected, technical problems and personality conflicts during production, and the public's reactions. From the upbeat tempo of the musical South Pacific to the weary disillusionment of The Best Years of Our Lives, from the patriotic nostalgia of Life's Picture History of World War II to the moral ambiguity of From Here to Eternity, a powerful mythology of the war developed. As a consequence, the line between fact and fiction has blurred for the war generation and its inheritors, and Hollywood's version of the Good War has become enshrined as historical fact in the nation's collective memory.

Author: Trevor McCrisken
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813536217
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Hollywood has a growing fascination with America's past. This book offers an analysis of how and why contemporary Hollywood films have sought to mediate American history. It considers whether or how far contemporary films have begun to unravel the unifying myths of earlier films and periods.

Author: Jonathan M. Bullinger
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000709604
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
During the 1980s and 1990s, aging Baby Boomer parents constructed a particular type of memory as they attempted to laud their own parents’ wartime accomplishments with the label "The Greatest Generation." This book is the first to tell the entire story of this particular type of U.S. World War II memory begun by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1984, and promoted the same year by newscaster Tom Brokaw. The story continues in 1994, when it was given academic credence by historian Stephen E. Ambrose, a sensory realism and ideal American character by director Steven Spielberg and actor Tom Hanks, sloganized by Tom Brokaw in 1998, and later interpreted in light of 9/11 and new wars.

Author: V. Casaregola
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230100872
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Historian Vincent Casaregola examines the portrayal of WWII in popular culture and how that protrayal has changed over time. By examining WWII films, literature, theatre and art from the Cold War era, the Vietnam War, the Reagan years, and present day, he seeks to understnad the part played by current politics, events and conflicts.

Author: Janis P. Stout
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817358625
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
While emphasizing aesthetic continuity between the wars, Stout stresses that the poetry that emerged from each displays a greater variety than is usually recognized."--Jacket.

Author: Joseph Cummins
Publisher: Thunder Bay Press
ISBN: 9781607108634
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The world famous events that we should all know more about. Joseph Cummins recounts thirty-seven of the best-known episodes from the past. Not only does he relate and re-create these events in captivating fashion, he also analyzes their impact on subsequent history and explains the reasons for their enduring fame. Accompany Hannibal over the Alps with a herd of elepants and learn what led him to attempt such a daunting and outlandish undertaking. Cross the Delaware River with George Washington to discover how his subsequent raid on British-held Trenton, New Jersey, changed the course of the American Revolution. Follow the British Light Brigade into the “Valley of Death” during the Crimean War and find out how this farcical military blunder was immortalized through its rendition in verse. *We’ve all heard of these momentous events, but how much do we really know about them? And why do we remember them? *Inside you’ll find thirty-seven in-depth accounts of the greatest events in history. Gripping, revealing, and informative, History’s Greatest Hits is a fascinating read for history buffs, or anyone seeking to understand the world we live in today.

Author: John M. Kinder
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022621009X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Christian Bagge, an Iraq War veteran, lost both his legs in a roadside bomb attack on his Humvee in 2006. Months after the accident, outfitted with sleek new prosthetic legs, he jogged alongside President Bush for a photo op at the White House. The photograph served many functions, one of them being to revive faith in an American martial ideal—that war could be fought without permanent casualties, and that innovative technology could easily repair war’s damage. When Bagge was awarded his Purple Heart, however, military officials asked him to wear pants to the ceremony, saying that photos of the event should be “soft on the eyes.” Defiant, Bagge wore shorts. America has grappled with the questions posed by injured veterans since its founding, and with particular force since the early twentieth century: What are the nation’s obligations to those who fight in its name? And when does war’s legacy of disability outweigh the nation’s interests at home and abroad? In Paying with Their Bodies, John M. Kinder traces the complicated, intertwined histories of war and disability in modern America. Focusing in particular on the decades surrounding World War I, he argues that disabled veterans have long been at the center of two competing visions of American war: one that highlights the relative safety of US military intervention overseas; the other indelibly associating American war with injury, mutilation, and suffering. Kinder brings disabled veterans to the center of the American war story and shows that when we do so, the history of American war over the last century begins to look very different. War can no longer be seen as a discrete experience, easily left behind; rather, its human legacies are felt for decades. The first book to examine the history of American warfare through the lens of its troubled legacy of injury and disability, Paying with Their Bodies will force us to think anew about war and its painful costs.

Author: Kimberly J. Lamay Licursi
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803290853
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
State war histories: an atom of interest in an ocean of apathy -- War memoirs: they pour from the presses daily -- War stories: fiction cannot ignore the greatest adventure in a man's life -- War films: shootin' and kissin'

Author: Rebecca Weeks
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813195322
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
The television industry is changing, and with it, the small screen's potential to engage in debate and present valuable representations of American history. Founded in 1972, HBO has been at the forefront of these changes, leading the way for many network, cable, and streaming services into the "post-network" era. Despite this, most scholarship has been dedicated to analyzing historical feature films and documentary films, leaving TV and the long-form drama hungry for coverage. In History by HBO: Televising the American Past, Rebecca Weeks fills the gap in this area of media studies and defends the historiographic power of long-form dramas. By focusing on this change and its effects, History by HBO outlines how history is crafted on television and the diverse forms it can take. Weeks examines the capabilities of the long-form serial for engaging with historical stories, insisting that the shift away from the network model and toward narrowcasting has enabled challenging histories to thrive in home settings. As an examination of HBO's unique structure for producing quality historical dramas, Weeks provides four case studies of HBO series set during different periods of United States history: Band of Brothers (2001), Deadwood (2004–2007), Boardwalk Empire (2012–2014), and Treme (2010–2013). In each case, HBO's lack of advertiser influence, commitment to creative freedom, and generous budgets continue to draw and retain talent who want to tell historical stories. Balancing historical and film theories in her assessment of the roles of mise-en–scène, characterization, narrative complexity, and sound in the production of effective historical dramas, Weeks' evaluation acts as an ode to the most recent Golden Age of TV, as well as a critical look at the relationship between entertainment media and collective memory.

Author: Patrick Finney
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136932933
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
Remembering the Road to World War Two is a broad and comparative, international survey of the historiography of the origins of the Second World War. It explores how, in the case of each of the major combatant countries, historical writing on the origins of the Second World War has been inextricably linked with conceptions of national identity and collective memory.