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

The average rating for The End of Victory Culture : Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-09-24 00:00:00 Keith Shiban What is the best way to sum up this book? A load of crap. The idea that the Vietnam era was the last to "play war" is so categorically untrue that it boarders on absurd. This book reads like yet another Baby Boomer insisting that his generation is the only one that matters. This book predates that other load of crap about the "Greatest Generation" written by another Boomer who finally realized that his parents weren't all that bad. Anyway, Engelhardt goes through post-war culture, demonstrating how the earlier myth of the United States and its view of war as a just and noble cause was altered as the Cold War and more specifically the Vietnam War progressed; making Americans look like brutes, savage and quite less than noble. He tries to make the case that the opposition to the war and many of those fighting was some kind of significant shift in American culture. However, two big mistakes in that analysis. First, throughout many conflicts in US history, there was considerable opposition and commentary surrounding its injustice, see for example the Mexican War, The Spanish-American War and especially the post World War I cultural examination of war. Second, Engelhardt kind of negates his own thesis by demonstrating how the first Gulf War along with many conflicts since the 1980s are very much like the victory culture that he assured us was over. I would argue that, especially in the wake of 9/11, that victory culture is even more pervasive than in was in the 1950s, that terrorism make for such a convenient bogey man, it justifies in the eyes of many (depending on who the president is at the time) some of the greatest abuses of power the United States has every seen. Don't be fooled, victory culture is alive and well.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-12-03 00:00:00 Dietrich Zoellner 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.