-- noted senior scholar of military sociology -- vital social/political topic of war, moral injury, and national identity -- links American foreign policy post-Vietnam with domestic political culture -- salient re-examination of Trump-era conservatism and its connection to US war culture

-- noted senior scholar of military sociology -- vital social/political topic of war, moral injury, and national identity -- links American foreign policy post-Vietnam with domestic political culture -- salient re-examination of Trump-era conservatism and its connection to US war culture

Even if you don't know much about the war in Vietnam, you've probably heard of "The Hanoi Hilton," or Hoa Lo Prison, where captured U.S. soldiers were held. What they did there and whether they were treated well or badly by the Vietnamese became lasting controversies. As military personnel returned from captivity in 1973, Americans became riveted by POW coming home stories. What had gone on behind these prison walls? Along with legends of lionized heroes who endured torture rather than reveal sensitive military information, there were news leaks suggesting that others had denounced the war in return for favorable treatment. What wasn't acknowledged, however, is that U.S. troop opposition to the war was vast and reached well into Hoa Loa Prison. Half a century after the fact, Dissenting POWs emerges to recover this history, and to discover what drove the factionalism in Hoa Lo. Looking into the underlying factional divide between prowar "hardliners" and antiwar "dissidents" among the POWs, authors Wilber and Lembcke delve into the postwar American culture that created the myths of the HeroPOW and the dissidents blamed for the loss of the war. What they found was surprising: It wasn't simply that some POWs were for the war and others against it, nor was it an officers versus enlisted men standoff. Rather, it was the class backgrounds of the captives and their precaptive experience that drew the lines. After the war, the hardcore hero holdouts-like John McCain-moved on to careers in politics and business, while the dissidents faded from view as the antiwar movement, that might otherwise have championed them, disbanded. Today, Dissenting POWs is a necessary myth buster, disabusing us of the revisionism that has replaced actual GI resistance with images of suffering POWs - ennobled victims that serve to suppress the fundamental questions of America's drift to endless war.

"Well-argued and documented"
--"Berkshire Eagle"

"The image is ingrained: A Vietnam veteran, arriving home from the war, gets off a plane only to be greeted by an angry mob of antiwar protesters yelling, 'Murderer!' and 'Baby killer!' Then out of the crowd comes someone who spits in the veteran's face. The only problem, according to Jerry Lembcke, is that no such incident ever has been documented. It is instead, says Lembcke, a kind of urban myth that reflects our lingering national confusion over the war."
--"Los Angeles Times"

"The myth of the spat-upon veteran is not only bad history, but it has been instrumental in selling the American public on bad policy."
--Maurice Isserman, "Chicago Tribune"

"The best history I have seen on the impact of the war on Americans, both then and now."
--David Dellinger

"Lembcke builds a compelling case against collective memory by demonstrating that remembrances of Vietnam were almost at direct odds with circumstantial evidence."
--"San Francisco Chronicle"

One of the most resilient images of the Vietnam era is that of the anti-war protester -- often a woman -- spitting on the uniformed veteran just off the plane. The lingering potency of this icon was evident during the Gulf War, when war supporters invoked it to discredit their opposition.

In this startling book, Jerry Lembcke demonstrates that not a single incident of this sort has been convincingly documented. Rather, the anti-war Left saw in veterans a natural ally, and the relationship between anti-war forces and most veterans was defined by mutual support. Indeed one soldier wrote angrily to Vice President Spiro Agnew that the only Americans who seemedconcerned about the soldier's welfare were the anti-war activists.

While the veterans were sometimes made to feel uncomfortable about their service, this sense of unease was, Lembcke argues, more often rooted in the political practices of the Right. Tracing a range of conflicts in the twentieth century, the book illustrates how regimes engaged in unpopular conflicts often vilify their domestic opponents for "stabbing the boys in the back."

Concluding with an account of the powerful role played by Hollywood in cementing the myth of the betrayed veteran through such films as "Coming Home," "Taxi Driver," and "Rambo," Jerry Lembcke's book stands as one of the most important, original, and controversial works of cultural history in recent years.

Even if you don't know much about the war in Vietnam, you've probably heard of "The Hanoi Hilton," or Hoa Lo Prison, where captured U.S. soldiers were held. What they did there and whether they were treated well or badly by the Vietnamese became lasting controversies. As military personnel returned from captivity in 1973, Americans became riveted by POW cominghome stories. What had gone on behind these prison walls? Along with legends of lionized heroes who endured torture rather than reveal sensitive military information, there were news leaks suggesting that others had denounced the war in return for favorable treatment. What wasn't acknowledged, however, is that U.S. troop opposition to the war was vast and reached well into Hoa Loa Prison. Half a century after the fact, Dissenting POWs emerges to recover this history, and to discover what drove the factionalism in Hoa Lo. Looking into the underlying factional divide between prowar "hardliners" and antiwar "dissidents" among the POWs, authors Wilber and Lembcke delve into the postwar American culture that created the myths of the HeroPOW and the dissidents blamed for the loss of the war. What they found was surprising: It wasn't simply that some POWs were for the war and others against it, nor was it an officersversusenlistedmen standoff. Rather, it was the class backgrounds of the captives and their precaptive experience that drew the lines. After the war, the hardcore heroholdouts-like John McCain-moved on to careers in politics and business, while the dissidents faded from view as the antiwar movement, that might otherwise have championed them, disbanded. Today, Dissenting POWs is a necessary mythbuster, disabusing us of the revisionism that has replaced actual GI resistance with images of suffering POWs - ennobled victims that serve to suppress the fundamental questions of America's drift to endless war.

Stories of soldiers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder dominate news coverage of the return from wars in the Middle East. On the surface, the stories call our attention to psychic trauma and the need for mental health services for veterans; scratch that surface and we see that PTSD has morphed from a diagnostic category into a cultural trope with broad societal implications. In PTSD: Diagnosis and Identity in Post-empire America, Jerry Lembcke exposes those implications. Lembcke reprises PTSD's formulation following the war in Vietnam, examining how its medical discourse provided a psychological alternative to the political interpretations of veterans' opposition to the war- psychiatrists said veteran dissent was cathartic, a form of acting-out. Lembcke drills deeply into the modern history of war-trauma treatment, picking up the threads left by nineteenth-century work on men and hysteria, and following them into the treatment of "shell shock" in World War I. With great originality, Lembcke also shows how art and the media led the "science" of war trauma, and then how the followers of Sigmund Freud showed that shell-shock symptoms were as likely to be expressions of fears and conflicts internal to the patients as the effects of exploding shells. The line drawn by the Freudian critique of the medical/neurological model would resurface in debates leading to PTSD's inclusion in the DSM in 1980 and on-going deliberations over the definition and meaning of Traumatic Brain Injury. In core chapters, Lembcke shows the influence of film, theater, television, and news coverage on public and professional thinking about war trauma. The inglorious nature of recent wars, from Vietnam through Iraq and Afghanistan, leaves Americans searching for meaning in those conflicts and finding it in loss and sacrifice. Lembcke warns that the image of damaged war veterans is working metaphorically in these dangerous times to construct a national self-image of defeat and damage that needs to be avenged. It is a dangerous end-of-empire narrative that needs to be engaged, he says, lest its dangers reach fruition in more war. The insights found in this book make it an invaluable resource for scholars of sociology, medical sociology, psychology, military studies, gender studies, and history of psychiatry, and a riveting read for anyone interested in the subjects it treats.

Stories of soldiers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder dominate news coverage of the return from wars in the Middle East. On the surface, the stories call our attention to psychic trauma and the need for mental health services for veterans; scratch that surface and we see that PTSD has morphed from a diagnostic category into a cultural trope with broad societal implications. In PTSD: Diagnosis and Identity in Post-empire America, Jerry Lembcke exposes those implications. Lembcke reprises PTSD's formulation following the war in Vietnam, examining how its medical discourse provided a psychological alternative to the political interpretations of veterans' opposition to the war- psychiatrists said veteran dissent was cathartic, a form of acting-out. Lembcke drills deeply into the modern history of war-trauma treatment, picking up the threads left by nineteenth-century work on men and hysteria, and following them into the treatment of "shell shock" in World War I. With great originality, Lembcke also shows how art and the media led the "science" of war trauma, and then how the followers of Sigmund Freud showed that shell-shock symptoms were as likely to be expressions of fears and conflicts internal to the patients as the effects of exploding shells. The line drawn by the Freudian critique of the medical/neurological model would resurface in debates leading to PTSD's inclusion in the DSM in 1980 and on-going deliberations over the definition and meaning of Traumatic Brain Injury. In core chapters, Lembcke shows the influence of film, theater, television, and news coverage on public and professional thinking about war trauma. The inglorious nature of recent wars, from Vietnam through Iraq and Afghanistan, leaves Americans searching for meaning in those conflicts and finding it in loss and sacrifice. Lembcke warns that the image of damaged war veterans is working metaphorically in these dangerous times to construct a national self-image of defeat and damage that needs to be avenged. It is a dangerous end-of-empire narrative that needs to be engaged, he says, lest its dangers reach fruition in more war. The insights found in this book make it an invaluable resource for scholars of sociology, medical sociology, psychology, military studies, gender studies, and history of psychiatry, and a riveting read for anyone interested in the subjects it treats.

On June 7, 1998 CNN broadcast Valley of Death, the story of a 1970 raid into Laos by U.S. Special Forces. According to the report, Operation Tailwind had used sarin nerve gas to kill U.S. soldiers who had defected to the North Vietnamese. After a firestorm of controversy, CNN retracted the report, ruining the career of rising star April Oliver and compromising the network's credibility. Called "the TV news story of the year" by TV Guide, CNN's Operation Tailwind fiasco was the biggest news scandal of the 1990s. Hearing about the story after its broadcast, Jerry Lembcke was struck by its resemblance to war legends and myths. His search for the origins of the tale, and an explanation for why top-level journalists would believe it, led him into the shocking world of political paranoia, where conspiracy theory, popular culture, religious fundamentalism, and the fantasies of war veterans cross paths. Approaching the story as a case study in why people believe what they do, Lembcke reversed the normal inquiry into how journalists shape what the rest of us know, to ask questions about the social forces that shape what journalists know. With a likeness to Herbert Gans' 1980 classic, Deciding What's News, Jerry Lembcke's CNN's Tailwind Tale is at once a study of American journalism that opens a window on America itself. Special link to the author's interview on Radio Nation discussing this new book - CNN's Tailwind Tale

This book offers a timely analysis of work and labor processes and how they are rapidly changing under globalization. The contributors explore traditional sectors of the U.S. and world economies - from auto to steel to agriculture - as well as work under new production arrangements, such as third world export processing zones. Many chapters analyze changing dynamics of gender, nationality, and class. The contributors explain why more intensified forms of control by the state and by capital interests are emerging under globalization. Yet they also emphasize new possibilities for labor, including new forms of organizing and power sharing in a rapidly changing economy.

This book offers a timely analysis of work and labor processes and how they are rapidly changing under globalization. The contributors explore traditional sectors of the U.S. and world economies - from auto to steel to agriculture - as well as work under new production arrangements, such as third world export processing zones. Many chapters analyze changing dynamics of gender, nationality, and class. The contributors explain why more intensified forms of control by the state and by capital interests are emerging under globalization. Yet they also emphasize new possibilities for labor, including new forms of organizing and power sharing in a rapidly changing economy.

This thought-provoking study argues for a restoration of the classical Marxist position linking the development process, class formation, and class capacities; in practical terms it argues for a restoration of strategies premised on a dialectical understanding of capitalism that sees the process of proletarianization as a capacity-enhancing one rather than a capacity-eroding one. Lembcke adopts Therborn's position that the fundamental power resource available to the working class is its capacity for unity through mutually supported and concerted practices, and that this capacity is rooted in the organizational structure. His work synthesizes three major areas of thought on the subject, including the work in logics of collective action (Offe and Wiesenthal), studies of class formation (Gordon, Edwards, and Reich) and class capacities (Therborn), and organizational studies done within the strategic choices framework (Cornfield).

At present, Marxism appears to have a strong footing within American sociology. This collection of essays not only focuses on current efforts to revitalize Marxism, but carefully examines the emerging new establishment within the field. It offers the only existing multidisciplinary critique of recent trends in neo-Marxist theory. Its unique critical approach and current information on debates in Marxist sociology will interest those involved in social theory, Marxism, political economy, and contemporary sociology.

At present, Marxism appears to have a strong footing within American sociology. This collection of essays not only focuses on current efforts to revitalize Marxism, but carefully examines the emerging new establishment within the field. It offers the only existing multidisciplinary critique of recent trends in neo-Marxist theory. Its unique critical approach and current information on debates in Marxist sociology will interest those involved in social theory, Marxism, political economy, and contemporary sociology.

From Aristophanes' Lysistrata to the notorious Mata Hari and the legendary Tokyo Rose, stories of female betrayal during wartime have recurred throughout human history. The myth of Hanoi Jane, Jerry Lembcke argues, is simply the latest variation on this enduring theme. Like most of the iconic femmes fatales who came before, it is based on a real person, Jane Fonda. And also like its predecessors, it combines traces of fact with heavy doses of fiction to create a potent symbol of feminine perfidy--part erotic warrior-woman Barbarella, part savvy anti-war activist, and part powerful entrepreneur. Hanoi Jane, the book, deconstructs Hanoi Jane, the myth, to locate its origins in the need of Americans to explain defeat in Vietnam through fantasies of home-front betrayal and the masculation of the national will-to-war. Lembcke shows that the expression "Hanoi Jane" did not reach the eyes and ears of most Americans until five or six years after the end of the war in Vietnam. By then, anxieties about America's declining global status and deteriorating economy were fuelling a populist reaction that pointed to the loss of the war as the taproot of those problems. Blaming the anti-war movement for undermining the military's resolve, many found in the imaginary Hanoi Jane the personification of their stab-in-the back theories. Ground zero of the myth was the city of Hanoi itself, which Jane Fonda had visited as a peace activist in July 1972. Rumours surrounding Fonda's visits with U.S. POWs and radio broadcasts to troops combined to conjure allegations of treason that had cost American lives. That such tales were more imagined than real did not prevent them from insinuating themselves into public memory, where they have continued to infect American politics and culture. Hanoi Jane is a book about the making of Hanoi Jane by those who saw a formidable threat in the Jane Fonda who supported soldiers and veterans opposed to the war they fought, in the postcolonial struggle of the Vietnamese people to make their own future, and in the movements of women everywhere for gender equality.