The End of Victory Culture : Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation Book

Gave this one a serious read, but came away with mixed feelings. The book contains solid descriptions of American cultural schisms during the early Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the Reagan era. The sense of militaristic exceptionalism that Engelhardt calls "victory culture" took a serious, and deserved, beating between 1945 and 1975. Some of Engelhardt's interpretations of major works of culture are flawed, omitting plot or formal details that would challenge his argument. Yes, "Star Wars" inspired a wave of violent fantasy media in which American stand-ins triumph over their enemies, but Engelhardt ignores the way in which "Star Wars" made post-Vietnam Americans sympathize with rebel guerillas. The book works against its own narrative of collapse in the last chapters. The resurgence of victory culture under Reagan and George W. Bush indicates that victory culture is not dead, but Engelhardt pitches these episodes as futile exercises. Conservatives and leftists alike cannot restore victory culture to its old status. I am not so sure. Trump ran for president by promising America would "win" again. Given the ways that Reagan, Clinton, the Bushes, and Trump all promised victory of some kind, plus Barack Obama's embrace of drone warfare, it seems that victory culture never "ended," but merely changed in form. The violence of recent history chips away at Engelhardt's thesis of collapse.