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Samuel Stouffer and the GI Survey - Sociologists and Soldiers during the Second World War (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R2,052
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Samuel Stouffer and the GI Survey - Sociologists and Soldiers during the Second World War (Hardcover)
Series: Legacies of War
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Samuel Stouffer, a little-known sociologist from Sac City, Iowa, is
likely not a name World War II historians associate with other
stalwart men of the war, such as Eisenhower, Patton, or MacArthur.
Yet Stouffer, in his role as head of the Army Information and
Education Division's Research Branch, spearheaded an effort to
understand the citizen-soldier, his reasons for fighting, and his
overall Army experience. Using empirical methods of inquiry to
transform general assumptions about leadership and soldiering into
a sociological understanding of a draftee Army, Stouffer perhaps
did more for the everyday soldier than any general officer could
have hoped to accomplish.
Stouffer and his colleagues surveyed more than a half-million
American GIs during World War II, asking questions about everything
from promotions and rations to combat motivation and beliefs about
the enemy. Soldiers' answers often demonstrated that their opinions
differed greatly from what their senior leaders thought soldier
opinions were, or should be. Stouffer and his team of sociologists
published monthly reports entitled "What the Soldier Thinks," and
after the war compiled the Research Branch's exhaustive data into
an indispensible study popularly referred to as "The American
Soldier." General George C. Marshall was one of the first to
recognize the value of Stouffer's work, referring to "The American
Soldier" as "the first quantitative studies of the . . . mental and
emotional life of the soldier." Marshall also recognized the
considerable value of "The American Soldier "beyond the military.
Stouffer's wartime work influenced multiple facets of policy,
including demobilization and the GI Bill. Post-war, Stouffer's
techniques in survey research set the state of the art in the
civilian world as well.
Both a biography of Samuel Stouffer and a study of the Research
Branch, "Samuel Stouffer and the GI Survey" illuminates the role
that sociology played in understanding the American draftee Army of
the Second World War. Joseph W. Ryan tracks Stouffer's career as he
guided the Army leadership toward a more accurate knowledge of
their citizen soldiers, while simultaneously establishing the
parameters of modern survey research. David R. Segal's introduction
places Stouffer among the elite sociologists of his day and
discusses his lasting impact on the field. Stouffer and his team
changed how Americans think about war and how citizen-soldiers were
treated during wartime. "Samuel Stouffer and the GI Survey" brings
a contemporary perspective to these significant contributions.
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