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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... appeared to beat the best professional armies on the continent. Chapter 3 suggests that this view was largely myth, but a myth that has had profound lasting consequences on American ideas, such as those regarding private gun ownership ...
... appeared as the epitome of blind stupidity inflicted from the top down. The bottom line is that history is not “just the facts, ma'am,” but an evolving dialogue over how the facts should be interpreted. By analyzing this dialogue, we ...
... appeared to have renewed moral meaning for America. The July 1863 attack on Fort Wagner by the black Fifty-fourth Massachusetts regiment was initially memorialized by leading artists, then lost to public view, only to resurface when ...
... appeared to be divinely blessed and earmarked to last for eternity. Yet the factors leading to knighthood's decline were already in place. The ultimate difficulty with this aristocratic military ordering of society was not only that it ...
... appeared to be as momentous as those described by Shakespeare. His play became a vehicle for expressing the feelings of interpreters living much later. The first movie, starring Laurence Olivier and released in 1945, is an exuberant ...
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 |