American war stories : veteran-writers and the politics of memoir / Myra Mendible.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mendible, Myra, 1954- author.

Series:

Veterans

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Veterans' writings, American--History and criticism.

Veterans' writings, American.

American literature--20th century--History and criticism.

American literature.

American literature--21st century--History and criticism.

Politics and literature--United States--History--20th century.

Politics and literature.

Veterans in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (244 pages)

Place of Publication:

Amherst ; Boston : Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, [2021]

Summary:

"Trust in media and political institutions is at an all-time low in America, yet veterans enjoy an unmatched level of credibility and moral authority. Their war stories have become crucial testimony about the nation's leadership, foreign policies, and wars. Veterans' memoirs are not simply self-revelatory personal chronicles but contributions to political culture-to the stories circulated and incorporated into national myths and memories. American War Stories centers on an extensive selection of memoirs written by veterans of the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan conflicts-including Brian Turner's My Life as a Foreign Country, Marcus Luttrell's Lone Survivor, and Camilo Mejia's Road from ar Ramadi-to explore the complex relationship between memory and politics in the context of postmodern war. Placing veterans' stories in conversation with broader cultural and political discourses, Myra Mendible analyzes the volatile mix of agendas, identities, and issues informing veteran-writers' narrative choices to argue that their work plays an important, though underexamined, political function in how Americans remember and judge their wars"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Protestors, patriots, and culture warriors American politics and the citizen-soldier

The fate worse than death saving face and the affective economy of war

Trusting the messenger veterans' memoirs and the politics of credibility

"Soldiers of conviction" duty, dissent, and the immigrant soldier

Silence amid the din of war the politics and poetics of audibility in Brian Turner's my Life as a foreign country

Beginnings stories that need telling.

Notes:

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

Other Format:

Print version: Mendible, Myra American War Stories

ISBN:

9781613769065

OCLC:

1252740922