For American children raised exclusively in wartime-that is, a Cold War containing monolithic communism turned hot in the jungles of Southeast Asia-and the first to grow up with televised combat, Vietnam was predominately a mediated experience. Walter Cronkite was the voice of the conflict, and grim, nightly statistics the most recognizable feature. But as involvement grew, Vietnam affected numerous changes in child life, comparable to the childhood impact of previous conflicts-chiefly the Civil War and World War II-whose intensity and duration also dominated American culture. In this protracted struggle that took on the look of permanence from a child's perspective, adult lives were increasingly militarized, leaving few preadolescents totally insulated. Over the years 1965 to 1973, the vast majority of American children integrated at least some elements of the war into their own routines. Parents, in turn, shaped their children's perspectives on Vietnam, while the more politicized mothers and fathers exposed them to the bitter polarization the war engendered. The fighting only became truly real insomuch as service in Vietnam called away older community members or was driven home literally when families shared hardships surrounding separation from cousins, brothers, and fathers.In seeing the Vietnam War through the eyes of preadolescent Americans, Joel P. Rhodes suggests broader developmental implications from being socialized to the political and ethical ambiguity of Vietnam. Youth during World War II retained with clarity into adulthood many of the proscriptive patriotic messages about U.S. rightness, why we fight, heroism, or sacrifice. In contrast, Vietnam tended to breed childhood ambivalence, but not necessarily of the hawk and dove kind. This unique perspective on Vietnam continues to complicate adult notions of militarism and warfare, while generally lowering expectations of American leadership and the presidency.

For American children raised exclusively in wartime-that is, a Cold War containing monolithic communism turned hot in the jungles of Southeast Asia-and the first to grow up with televised combat, Vietnam was predominately a mediated experience. Walter Cronkite was the voice of the conflict, and grim, nightly statistics the most recognizable feature. But as involvement grew, Vietnam affected numerous changes in child life, comparable to the childhood impact of previous conflicts-chiefly the Civil War and World War II-whose intensity and duration also dominated American culture. In this protracted struggle that took on the look of permanence from a child's perspective, adult lives were increasingly militarized, leaving few preadolescents totally insulated. Over the years 1965 to 1973, the vast majority of American children integrated at least some elements of the war into their own routines. Parents, in turn, shaped their children's perspectives on Vietnam, while the more politicized mothers and fathers exposed them to the bitter polarization the war engendered. The fighting only became truly real insomuch as service in Vietnam called away older community members or was driven home literally when families shared hardships surrounding separation from cousins, brothers, and fathers. In seeing the Vietnam War through the eyes of preadolescent Americans, Joel P. Rhodes suggests broader developmental implications from being socialized to the political and ethical ambiguity of Vietnam. Youth during World War II retained with clarity into adulthood many of the proscriptive patriotic messages about U.S. rightness, why we fight, heroism, or sacrifice. In contrast, Vietnam tended to breed childhood ambivalence, but not necessarily of the hawk and dove kind. This unique perspective on Vietnam continues to complicate adult notions of militarism and warfare, while generally lowering expectations of American leadership and the presidency.

The tide of 1960s political upheaval, while mistaken at the time by some as a unified assault against America carried out by revolutionaries at home and abroad, was actually hundreds of locally constructed expressions of political discourse, reflecting the influences of race, class, gender, and local conditions on each unique group of practitioners. This is a comparative study of how radicals at the local level staged, displayed, and ultimately narrated symbolic acts of performative violence against the symbols of the American system. The term performative violence refers to a method of public protest whereby participants create the conditions in which their violent actions become a political text, a powerful symbol with a strong historical precedent.

Recognizing the textuality of history, this interdisciplinary examination deconstructs the performative violence within its historically specific and socially constructed contexts using four representative case histories of late 1960s and early 1970s activism. These are the African-American rioters in Kansas City, the Black Panther Party in Detroit, campus radicals at Kansas State University, and activists at the University of Kansas. Rather than focusing on the major clashes of the Vietnam era, this book contributes to recent scholarship on the 1960s which has attempted to offer a more textured analysis of the era's activism, particularly its political violence, based on more local studies.

Lawyer and journalist, entrepreneur and philanthropist, Louis Houck is often called the "Father of Southeast Missouri" because he brought the railroad to the region and opened this backwater area to industrialization and modernization. Although Houck's name is little known today outside Missouri, Joel Rhodes shows how his story has relevance for both the state and the nation. Rhodes presents a more complete picture of Houck than has ever been available: reviewing his life from his German immigrant roots, considering his career from both social and political perspectives, and grounding the story in both state and national history. He especially tells how, from 1880 to the 1920s, this self-taught railroader constructed a network of five hundred miles of track through the wilderness of wetlands known as "Swampeast Missouri"-and how these "Houck Roads" provided a boost for population, agriculture, lumbering, and commerce that transformed Cape Girardeau and the surrounding area. Rhodes discusses how Houck fits into the era of economic individualism-a time when men with little formal training shaped modern industry-and also gives voice to Houck's critics and shows that he was not always an easy man to work with. In telling the story of his railroading enterprise, Rhodes chronicles Houck's battle with the Jay Gould railroad empire and offers key insight into the development of America's railway system, from the cutthroat practices of ruthless entrepreneurs to the often-comic ineptness of start-up rail lines. More than simply a biography of a business entrepreneur, the book tells how Houck not only developed the region economically but also followed the lead of Andrew Carnegie by making art, culture, and formal education available to all social classes. Houck also served for thirty-six years as president of the Board of Regents of Southeast Missouri State Teacher's College, and as a self-taught historian he wrote the first comprehensive accounts of Missouri's territorial period. A Missouri Railroad Pioneer chronicles a multifaceted career that transformed a region. Solidly researched, this lively narrative also offers an entertaining read for anyone interested in Missouri history.