The Good Occupation : American Soldiers and the Hazards of Peace / Susan L. Carruthers.
2017
D825 .C274 2016eb
Linked e-resources
Linked Resource
Online Access
Details
Title
The Good Occupation : American Soldiers and the Hazards of Peace / Susan L. Carruthers.
ISBN
9780674972902
Published
Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2017]
Copyright
©2016
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (380 p.) : 25 halftones
Other Standard Identifiers
10.4159/9780674972902 doi
Call Number
D825 .C274 2016eb
Dewey Decimal Classification
940.53/144092313
Summary
Waged for a just cause and culminating in total victory, World War II was America's "good war." Yet for millions of GIs overseas, the war did not end with Germany and Japan's surrender. The Good Occupation chronicles America's transition from wartime combatant to postwar occupier, by exploring the intimate thoughts and feelings of the ordinary servicemen and women who participated-often reluctantly-in the difficult project of rebuilding nations they had so recently worked to destroy. When the war ended, most of the seven million Americans in uniform longed to return to civilian life. Yet many remained on active duty, becoming the "after-army" tasked with bringing order and justice to societies ravaged by war. Susan Carruthers shows how American soldiers struggled to deal with unprecedented catastrophe among millions of displaced refugees and concentration camp survivors while negotiating the inevitable tensions that arose between victors and the defeated enemy. Drawing on thousands of unpublished letters, diaries, and memoirs, she reveals the stories service personnel told themselves and their loved ones back home in order to make sense of their disorienting and challenging postwar mission. The picture Carruthers paints is not the one most Americans recognize today. A venture undertaken by soldiers with little appetite for the task has crystallized, in the retelling, into the "good occupation" of national mythology: emblematic of the United States' role as a bearer of democracy, progress, and prosperity. In real time, however, "winning the peace" proved a perilous business, fraught with temptation and hazard.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Aug 2021)
Linked Resources
Online Access
Record Appears in
Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources
All Resources
Table of Contents
Frontmatter
Contents
Introduction. The Troublesome "O Word"
1. Preparing to Occupy
2. "The Life of Conquerors"
3. Staging Victory in Asia
4. From V- E to VD
5. Displaced and Displeased Persons
6. Demobilization by Demoralization
7. Getting without Spending
8. Domesticating Occupation
Conclusion. The "Good Occupation"?
Abbreviations
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
Contents
Introduction. The Troublesome "O Word"
1. Preparing to Occupy
2. "The Life of Conquerors"
3. Staging Victory in Asia
4. From V- E to VD
5. Displaced and Displeased Persons
6. Demobilization by Demoralization
7. Getting without Spending
8. Domesticating Occupation
Conclusion. The "Good Occupation"?
Abbreviations
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index