Winner, 2020 Peter C Rollins Prize, given by the Northeast Popular & American Culture Association Enables a reckoning with the legacy of the Forgotten War through literary and cinematic works of cultural memory Though often considered "the forgotten war," lost between the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War, the Korean War was, as Daniel Y. Kim argues, a watershed event that fundamentally reshaped both domestic conceptions of race and the interracial dimensions of the global empire that the United States would go on to establish. He uncovers a trail of cultural artefacts that speaks to the trauma experienced by civilians during the conflict but also evokes an expansive web of complicity in the suffering that they endured. Taking up a range of American popular media from the 1950s, Kim offers a portrait of the Korean War as it looked to Americans while they were experiencing it in real time. Kim expands this archive to read a robust host of fiction from US writers like Susan Choi, Rolando Hinojosa, Toni Morrison, and Chang-rae Lee, and the Korean author Hwang Sok-yong. The multiple and ongoing historical trajectories presented in these works testify to the resurgent afterlife of this event in US cultural memory, and of its lasting impact on multiple racialized populations, both within the US and in Korea. The Intimacies of Conflict offers a robust, multifaceted, and multidisciplinary analysis of the pivotal-but often unacknowledged-consequences of the Korean War in both domestic and transnational histories of race.

Few historians of the Vietnam War have covered the post-1975 era or engaged comprehensively with refugee politics, humanitarianism, and human rights as defining issues of the period. After Saigon's Fall is the first major work to uncover this history. Amanda C. Demmer offers a new account of the post-War normalization of US-Vietnam relations by centering three major transformations of the late twentieth century: the reassertion of the US Congress in American foreign policy; the Indochinese diaspora and changing domestic and international refugee norms; and the intertwining of humanitarianism and the human rights movement. By tracing these domestic, regional, and global phenomena, After Saigon's Fall captures the contingencies and contradictions inherent in US-Vietnamese normalization. Using previously untapped archives to recover a riveting narrative with both policymakers and nonstate advocates at its center, Demmer's book also reveals much about US politics and society in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

A fully illustrated study of the extraordinarily successful early-generation jet, the F2H Banshee, a frontline aircraft that served with 27 US Navy and US Marine Corps squadrons and three Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) squadrons. The F2H Banshee was an extraordinarily successful early-generation jet that outlasted both contemporary and more modern fighter types on the decks of the US Navy's aircraft carriers in the 1950s. It served in a variety of roles and was a frontline aircraft for more than a decade in an era when jet fighters came and went with relatively short service careers. This book examines the entire service life of the F2H in the service of the US Navy, US Marine Corps and the RCN. Initially created as a replacement aircraft for McDonnell's pioneering FH1 Phantom, the F2H served in the Korean War as a strike fighter, close air support aircraft, B29 escort, and photoreconnaissance aircraft, including the latter's forays over the Soviet Union and China. Post service in Korea, the Banshee served as a carrier based nuclear strike aircraft, followed by its service as a defensive fighter for antisubmarine aircraft carriers. Filled with first-hand accounts and rare colour photographs, this is the engrossing story of the F2H Banshee, exploring its variety of roles in service and detailing the technology development that improved the aircraft's capabilities over time.

As it seeks to win the hearts and minds of citizens in the Muslim world, the United States has poured millions of dollars into local television and radio programming, hoping to generate pro-American currents on Middle Eastern airwaves. However, as this fascinating new book shows, the Middle Eastern media producers who rely on these funds are hardly puppets on an American string, but instead contribute their own political and creative agendas while working within U.S. restrictions. The Other Air Force gives readers a unique inside look at television and radio production in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, from the isolated villages of the Afghan Panjshir Valley to the congested streets of Ramallah. Communications scholar Matt Sienkiewicz explores how the U.S. takes a ""soft-psy"" approach to its media efforts combining ""soft"" methods of encouraging entertainment programming, such as adaptations of The Voice and The Apprentice with more militaristic ""psy-ops"" approaches to information control. Drawing from years of field research and interviews with everyone from millionaire executives to underpaid but ever resourceful cameramen, Sienkiewicz considers the perspectives of the Afghan and Palestinian media workers trying to forge viable broadcasting businesses without straying outside American-set boundaries for acceptable content. As it carefully examines the interplay of U.S. military and economic might with the capacity for local ingenuity and resistance, the book also analyzes the intriguingly complex programming that emerges from this tension. Combining eyewitness reportage with cutting-edge scholarship, The Other Air Force reveals the remarkable creative output that can emerge even from the world's tensest conflict zones.

The unimagined community proposes a reexamination of the Vietnam War from a perspective that has been largely excluded from historical accounts of the conflict, that of the South Vietnamese. Challenging the conventional view that the war was a struggle between the Vietnamese people and US imperialism, the study presents a wide-ranging investigation of South Vietnamese culture, from political philosophy and psychological warfare to popular culture and film. Beginning with a genealogy of the concept of a Vietnamese "culture," as the latter emerged during the colonial period, the book concludes with a reflection on the rise of popular culture during the American intervention. Reexamining the war from the South Vietnamese perspective, The unimagined community pursues the provocative thesis that the conflict, in this early stage, was not an anti-communist crusade, but a struggle between two competing versions of anticolonial communism. -- .

More than forty years have passed since the official end of the Vietnam War, yet the war's legacies endure. Its history and iconography still provide fodder for film and fiction, communities of war refugees have spawned a wide Vietnamese diaspora, and the United States military remains embroiled in unwinnable wars with eerie echoes of Vietnam. Looking Back on the Vietnam War brings together scholars from a broad variety of disciplines, who offer fresh insights on the war's psychological, economic, artistic, political, and environmental impacts. Each essay examines a different facet of the war, from its representation in Marvel comic books to the experiences of Vietnamese soldiers exposed to Agent Orange. By putting these pieces together, the contributors assemble an expansive yet nuanced composite portrait of the war and its global legacies. Though they come from diverse scholarly backgrounds, ranging from anthropology to film studies, the contributors are united in their commitment to original research. Whether exploring rare archives or engaging in extensive interviews, they voice perspectives that have been excluded from standard historical accounts. Looking Back on the Vietnam War thus embarks on an interdisciplinary and international investigation to discover what we remember about the war, how we remember it, and why.

This book is the first detailed, illustrated guide to the military uniforms, civilian clothing, and equipment worn and used by Soviet soldiers and Mujahideen warriors in Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989. With over 500 images, this book presents front-line soldiers, NCOs, and officers in the main combat branches of the Soviet armed forces as well as Mujahideen warriors, actually ordinary Afghans, who were thrust by fate into the midst of a relentless guerrilla war against one of the largest regular armies in the world. Uniforms presented in this book are assembled in configurations confirmed by wartime photos. All photographs taken for this book are genuine service-issue or private-purchase Soviet and Afghan Mujahideen items.

As the first book to call for an immediate withdrawal from Vietnam, Howard Zinn's 'Vietnam' includes a powerful speech which he believed President Lyndon Johnson should have delivered to lay out the case for ending the war. Of the many books that challenged the Vietnam War, Howard Zinn's 'Vietnam' stands out as one of the greatest - and indeed the most influential. The writings in this book helped spark a national debate on the war; few aside from Zinn could reach so many with such passion and such conciseness.

Henry Kissinger dominated American foreign relations like no other figure in recent history. He negotiated an end to American involvement in the Vietnam War, opened relations with Communist China, and orchestrated detente with the Soviet Union. Yet he is also the man behind the secret bombing of Cambodia and policies leading to the overthrow of Chile's President Salvador Allende. Which is more accurate, the picture of Kissinger the skilled diplomat or Kissinger the war criminal?
In The Flawed Architect, the first major reassessment of Kissinger in over a decade, historian Jussi Hanhimaki paints a subtle, carefully composed portrait of America's most famous and infamous statesman. Drawing on extensive research from newly declassified files, the author follows Kissinger from his beginnings in the Nixon administration up to the current controversy fed by Christopher Hitchens over whether Kissinger is a war criminal. Hanhimaki guides the reader through White House power struggles and debates behind the Cambodia and Laos invasions, the search for a strategy in Vietnam, the breakthrough with China, and the unfolding of Soviet-American detente. Here, too, are many other international crises of the period--the Indo-Pakistani War, the Yom Kippur War, the Angolan civil war--all set against the backdrop of Watergate. Along the way, Hanhimaki sheds light on Kissinger's personal flaws--he was obsessed with secrecy and bureaucratic infighting in an administration that self-destructed in its abuse of power--as well as his great strengths as a diplomat. We see Kissinger negotiating, threatening and joking with virtually all of the key foreign leaders of the 1970s, from Mao to Brezhnev and Anwar Sadat to Golda Meir.
This well researched account brings to life the complex nature of American foreign policymaking during the Kissinger years. It will be the standard work on Kissinger for years to come."

This book explores the culture of deference by the legislative branch to the executive branch on foreign policy issues, particularly regarding the George W. Bush administration's rush to war in Iraq in 2003. By authorizing President Bush to go to war in Iraq at his own discretion in its October 2002 resolution, the 107th Congress abdicated its constitutional responsibility and its members failed to honor their oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Although the «war powers are constitutionally those of Congress, historically presidents have engaged in war making and Congress has with limited success attempted to curb such war making. This book traces how this culture of deference to the chief executive on war making evolved and how, especially in the case of Iraq, it has adversely affected the interests of the nation, its constitutional framework, and its position in the world. This book will serve as an excellent text for courses on U.S. foreign policy, U.S. diplomatic history, and the role of Congress.

With first-hand insight into the into the key role of the US Air Force's fighter-bomber from the Vietnam War through to Operation Desert Storm during the First Gulf War, this book is an unmissable account of some of the most dangerous and demanding missions in the two wars. The advent of the surface-to-air missile (SAM) in the early 1950s threatened the whole concept of aerial bombing from medium and high altitude. Countermeasures were developed during the Korean War, but with little initial success. It was only in the closing stages of the Vietnam War, with the F-4Cww Phantom II (Wild Weasel 4), that this equipment started to become successful enough to allow a substantial investment in converting 116 F-4E Phantom IIs into dedicated SEAD aircraft. This move introduced a new generation of anti-radar missiles which became invaluable in later operations including operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Northern Watch over Iraq. This volume features dynamic archival photography from crews who flew the jet, alongside mission accounts and technical details of the development and fielding of the F-4 Wild Weasel in its various iterations. Including specially commissioned artwork of 'sharkmouthed' Phantom IIs in Vietnam jungle camouflage and more modern USAF 'Ghost Gray', this book is the ultimate visual and technical guide to the F-4 Phantom II Wild Weasel Units in combat.

A monumental work of research and analysis, this is a history of the Vietnam War in a single province of the Mekong Delta over the period 1930-1975. More precisely, it is a study of the Vietnamese dimension of the "Vietnam War, " focusing on the revolutionary movement that became popularly known as the "Viet Cong." There are several distinctive features to this study: (1) it provides an explanation for the paradox of why the revolutionary movement was so successful during the war, but unable to meet the challenges of postwar developments; (2) it challenges the dominant theme of contemporary political analysis which assumes that people are "rational" actors responding to events with careful calculations of self-interest; (3) it closely examines province-level documentation that casts light on a number of important historical controversies about the war. No other history of the Vietnam War has drawn on such a depth of documentation, especially firsthand accounts that allow the Vietnamese participants to spea directly to us.

Tariq is beset by danger on the streets and by conflict at home. Music is his only consolation. When he forms a new friendship with the volatile but intriguing record-store owner, Jamal, Tariq discovers the world of jazz and the man he could become. The violence that has long threatened finally erupts, and things suddenly clarify for Tariq. He takes the ultimate risk - not on behalf of his friend but on behalf of his enemy - and the disparate worlds of modern America and traditional Islam come together in an unexpected and gripping resolution.

The Vietnam War was arguably the most important event for America in the twentieth century. The US entered the conflict with doctrines modelled for the Cold War and a mission to wipe out Communism, but the reality of war in Vietnam confounded all expectations. This book chronicles the bloody guerrilla warfare that ensued.

U.S. Marine Sergeant Tim Fortner survived 14 months in Vietnam as a door gunner in a CH-46 helicopter. Completing 27 strike flight missions, he was awarded the Air Medal and Bronze Star for meritorious service in combat. Like many veterans, his real battle didn't begin until he returned home, where he struggled to adjust to the "new normal" of American life in 1969, still haunted by his experiences during the nation's most unpopular war. His memoir describes his military training, his unit's harrying missions inserting and extracting troops over landing zones under enemy fire, and his four-decade struggle with service-connected PTSD.

Largely overshadowed by World War II's "greatest generation" and the more vocal veterans of the Vietnam era, Korean War veterans remain relatively invisible in the narratives of both war and its aftermath. Yet, just as the beaches of Normandy and the jungles of Vietnam worked profound changes on conflict participants, the Korean Peninsula chipped away at the beliefs, physical and mental well-being, and fortitude of Americans completing wartime tours of duty there. Upon returning home, Korean War veterans struggled with home front attitudes toward the war, faced employment and family dilemmas, and wrestled with readjustment. Not unlike other wars, Korea proved a formative and defining influence on the men and women stationed in theater, on their loved ones, and in some measure on American culture. In the Shadow of the Greatest Generation not only gives voice to those Americans who served in the "forgotten war" but chronicles the larger personal and collective consequences of waging war the American way.

Following the Text Offensive, a shift in U.S. naval strategy in 1967-1968 saw young men fresh out of high school policing the canals and tributaries of South Vietnam aboard PBRs (patrol boat, riverine)--unarmored yet heavily armed and highly maneuverable vessels designed to operate in shallow, weedy waterways. This memoir recounts the experiences of the author and his shipmates as they cruised the Viet Cong-occupied backwaters of the Mekong Delta, and their emotional metamorphosis as wartime events shaped the men they would be for the remainder of their lives.

Using archival photographs sourced directly from Vietnam, specially commissioned diagrams and combat accounts from veterans, István Toperczer reveals how the MiG-21 defended Vietnam between 1966 and 1968. One of the most successful communist jet fighters ever built, the MiG-21 "Fishbed" was involved in a series of deadly duels with American fighters over North Vietnam as the USAF and US Navy ramped up strike missions during Operation Rolling Thunder, culminating in the destruction of over 70 US aircraft for the loss of 35 "Fishbeds." Having honed their skills on the subsonic MiG-17, pilots of the Vietnam People's Air Force received their first examples of the legendary MiG-21 supersonic fighter in 1966. Soon thrown into combat over North Vietnam, the guided-missile-equipped MiG-21 proved a deadly opponent for the American crews striking at targets deep into communist territory. Although the communist pilots initially struggled to come to terms with the fighter’s air search radar and weapons systems, the ceaseless cycle of combat operations quickly honed their skills. The best fighter then available to the VPAF, more than 200 MiG-21s (of various sub-types) were supplied to the North Vietnamese. In this study, leading VPAF authority István Toperczer analyzes the tactics used by the MiG-21 pilots over the bitter fighting in North Vietnam during Rolling Thunder. The highspeed ‘hit and run’ attacks employed by the communist pilots proved to be very successful, with both R-3S air-to-air missiles and heavy-caliber cannon inflicting a rising toll on American jets. Using first-hand accounts from MiG-21 pilots, battlescene artwork, combat ribbon diagrams, and armament views, the author details the important role played by the "Fishbed" in the defense of North Vietnam.

This is the first history of the legendary US Army's HAWK missile system, the world's first mobile air-defense missile system, which saw service and combat around the world. Designed to counteract the threat posed by advanced 1950s Soviet-built aircraft, the first HAWK unit became operational in 1959. At its peak, it saw frontline service in the Far East, Panama, Europe, and in the Middle East. Units were also used during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War, and Persian Gulf War. In the hands of other nations, HAWK proved its efficacy in combat during the Arab-Israeli Wars, Iran-Iraq War, Chadian-Libyan War, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Credited with shooting down more than 100 aircraft during its combat career, the HAWK system was respected for its lethality. Such was Soviet concern, that the USSR developed electronic jammers, anti-radiation missiles, and other countermeasures specifically to degrade its effectiveness. The US retired its HAWK systems soon after the Cold War ended in 1991 when air defense priorities shifted from aircraft to ballistic missile defense, yet a modernized version of the system remains in service to this day in many nations. Packed with archive photos and original artwork, this is the first book about the HAWK system. Featuring research from HAWK technical and field manuals, interviews with HAWK veterans, and detailing the authors' personal experiences with HAWK missile units, it provides a comprehensive study of one of the most lethal and effective air missile systems of all time.

The first account of the new Taliban-showing who they are, what they want, and how they differ from their predecessors Since the fall of Kabul in 2021, the Taliban have effective control of Afghanistan-a scenario few Western commentators anticipated. But after a twenty-year-long bitter war against the Republic of Afghanistan, reestablishing control is a complex procedure. What is the Taliban's strategy now that they've returned to power? In this groundbreaking new account, Hassan Abbas examines the resurgent Taliban as ruptures between moderates and the hardliners in power continue to widen. The group is now facing debilitating threats-from humanitarian crises to the Islamic State in Khorasan-but also engaging on the world stage, particularly with China and central Asian states. Making considered use of sources and contacts in the region, and offering profiles of major Taliban leaders, Return of the Taliban is the essential account of the movement as it develops and consolidates its grasp on Afghanistan.

"Matterhorn" author Karl Marlantes' nonfiction debut is a powerful book about the experience of combat and how inadequately we prepare our young men and women for the psychological and spiritual stresses of war. One of the most important and highly-praised books of 2011, Karl Marlantes' "What It Is Like to Go to War" is set to become just as much of a classic as his epic novel "Matterhorn". In 1968, at the age of twenty-two, Karl Marlantes was dropped into the highland jungle of Vietnam, an inexperienced lieutenant in command of a platoon of forty Marines who would live or die by his decisions. In his thirteen-month tour he saw intense combat. He killed the enemy and he watched friends die. Marlantes survived, but like many of his brothers in arms, he has spent the last forty years dealing with his experiences. In "What It Is Like to Go to War", Marlantes takes a deeply personal and candid look at the experience and ordeal of combat, critically examining how we might better prepare our young soldiers for war. War is as old as humankind, but in the past, warriors were prepared for battle by ritual, religion, and literature - which also helped bring them home. In a compelling narrative, Marlantes weaves riveting accounts of his combat experiences with thoughtful analysis, self-examination, and his readings - from Homer to the Mahabharata to Jung. He tells frankly about how he is haunted by the face of the young North Vietnamese soldier he killed at close quarters and explains how he finally found a way to make peace with his past. He makes it clear just how poorly prepared our nineteen-year-old warriors - mainly men but increasingly women - are for the psychological and spiritual aspects of their journey.

This highly illustrated title traces the development of mercenary soldiering from individuals and small units in the African wars of the 1960s-90s to today's state-employed corporate military contractors. The phenomenon of mercenary soldiering has constantly recurred in the news since the 1960s and has always attracted lively interest. The concept of 'mercenaries' began in the former Belgian Congo during the 1960s when men such as Mike Hoare and Bob Denard assembled hundreds of military veterans to 'do the fighting' for a particular leader or faction. This idea soon evolved into small teams of individuals training and leading local forces with varying success; wars in Rhodesia and on South Africa's borders attracted foreign volunteers into national armed forces, and veterans of these conflicts later sought employment elsewhere as mercenaries. The wars in the former Yugoslavia also attracted foreign fighters inspired as much by political and religious motives as by pay. This picture then evolved again, as former officers with recent experience set up sophisticated commercial companies to identify and fill the needs of governments whose own militaries were inadequate. Most recently, the aftermath of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has seen such contractors taking on some of the burden of long-term security off major national armies, while the subsequent rise of ISIS/Daesh has added a parallel strain of ideological volunteers. The author is well placed to describe how the face of mercenary soldiering has evolved and changed over 60 years. Using first-hand accounts, photos and detailed illustrations, this book presents a compelling snapshot of the life, campaigns and kit used by mercenary operatives engaged in fighting within both larger and more specific conflicts around the world.