UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

Book Jacket: Vietnam and Other American Fantasies by H.B. Franklin

H. Bruce Franklin

A provocative reassessment of the Vietnam War and its cultural and political legacies

Written by one of the nation's most incisive cultural historians, this book offers a wide-ranging exploration of the causes, meaning, and continuing significance of the American war in Vietnam. It is a synthesis of H. Bruce Franklin's decades of engagement with that conflict—a fusion of critical analysis, meticulous scholarship, and moral insight that reveals crucial truths about the war while exposing the many fantasies about Vietnam that permeate American culture and politics.

Franklin presents the Vietnam War not as a "mistake," a "quagmire," or a "noble cause" but as a defining event in modern global history. He begins by examining some of the iconic images of the war, showing how their meaning has changed over time and placing them in the context of other American representations of warfare, from the heroic paintings of the Revolutionary era through Civil War photography to the "virtual" imagery of the Gulf War. Subsequent chapters explore the forgotten history of the antiwar movement all the way back to 1945; literature by Vietnam veterans; the crucial role of Vietnam in politics, the media, and the "culture wars" still raging in America; interactions between the war and America's technological imagination, including such manifestations as superweapons, Star Trek, and other science fiction; and the genesis and persistent influence of the POW/MIA myth.

Throughout the book Franklin explores the complex interplay of culture, technology, politics, and power. The result is an original and profound analysis of the continuing impact of the Vietnam War on American culture.

"Wonderfully written, deeply researched, and insightfully argued. . . . I am especially enthusiastic about the value of this book to college classes on the Vietnam War and modern U.S. culture. Here, in one place, teachers can present students with stimulating analyses of many crucial topics which heretofore could only be found, if at all, in separate books."

Christian G. Appy, author of Working-Class
War: American Combat Soldiers in Vietnam.

"For the past thirty-five years, the history of the Vietnam War has been reshaped by official history, mainstream news media, Hollywood, and various political commentators into an untroubled remembering or a deep forgetting, which comes to the same thing. . . . What marks this provocative and engaging book is H. Bruce Franklin's steadfast resistance to a society that takes 'plausible deniability' as its first principle. . . . The range of subjects considered, Franklin's clear-headed analysis, and his impressive knowledge all make this an important contribution."

Marilyn B. Young, author of The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990

H. Bruce Franklin is the John Cotton Dana Professor of English and American Studies at Rutgers University in Newark. Among his books are M.I.A. or Myth-making in America and War Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination.

American Studies / Cultural Studies
272 pp., 11 illus.
LC 00-030275
$35.00s cloth, ISBN 1-55849-279-8
$22.95t paper, ISBN 1-55849-332-8
September 2001 paper
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A volume in the series Culture, Politics and The Cold War

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