Echoes of War: A Thousand Years of Military History in Popular CultureUniversity Press of Kentucky, 2021 M10 21 - 296 pages Americans are often accused of not appreciating history, but this charge belies the real popular interest in the past. Historical reenactments draw thousands of spectators; popular histories fill the bestseller lists; PBS, A&E and The History Channel air a dizzying array of documentaries and historical dramas; and Hollywood war movies become blockbusters. Though historians worry that these popular representations sacrifice authenticity for broad appeal, Michael C.C. Adams argues that living history—even if it is an incomplete depiction of the past—plays a vital role in stimulating the historical imagination. In Echoes of War, he examines how one of the most popular fields of history is portrayed, embraced, and shaped by mainstream culture. Adams argues that symbols of war are of intrinsic military significance and help people to articulate ideas and values. We still return to the knight as a symbol of noble striving; the bowman appeals as a rebel against unjust privilege. Though Custer may not have been the Army's most accomplished fighter, he achieved the status of cultural icon. The public memory of the redcoated British regular soldier shaped American attitudes toward governments and gun laws. The 1863 attack on Fort Wagner by the black Fifty-fourth Massachusetts regiment was lost to public view until racial equality became important in the late twentieth century. Echoes of War is a unique look at how a thousand years of military history are remembered in popular culture, through images ranging from the medieval knight to the horror of U.S. involvement in the My Lai massacre. |
From inside the book
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... British North America, so that events had a profound effect in molding how Americans thought about government. Chapter 2 proposes that memory of the era in some sectors of popular culture has left a pervasive distrust of central ...
... British Empire costume dramas; and the concerned citizens who wonder if our claims for the efficacy and humanity of strategic bombing as practiced in Yugoslavia are accurate. This variety has somewhat influenced my choice of topics ...
... British Library, manuscript number: COTT.JUL.E.IV Art 6 f20v. For this reason, the French aristocracy preferred to keep longbow use to a minimum. Thus, they tried to force military reality to follow social hierarchy, and were to pay for ...
... British held in contempt for their 1940 surrender to the Germans, are portrayed as effete, rather silly, quite inferior to the stolid, salt-of-the-earth Anglos. The 1989 remake by Kenneth Branagh is quite different in tone. It postdates ...
... armies, into which the sons of the most aristocratic houses sought entrance. All British officers were expected to ride and play saddle games—polo, fox hunting, and pig-sticking with spears in India—the expense of which kept the.
Other editions - View all
Echoes of War: A Thousand Years of Military History in Popular Culture Michael C.C. Adams Limited preview - 2014 |
Echoes of War: A Thousand Years of Military History in Popular Culture Michael C. C. Adams No preview available - 2002 |
Echoes of War: A Thousand Years of Military History in Popular Culture Michael C.C. Adams No preview available - 2002 |