1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910957813203321

Autore

Lair Meredith H

Titolo

Armed with abundance : consumerism and soldiering in the Vietnam War / / Meredith H. Lair

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chapel Hill, N.C., : University of North Carolina Press, 2011

ISBN

979-88-908853-8-8

979-88-9313-430-8

1-4696-1903-2

1-4696-0252-0

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (314 p.)

Disciplina

959.704/31

Soggetti

Soldiers - United States - Social life and customs - 20th century

Lifestyles - United States - History - 20th century

Consumption (Economics) - Social aspects - United States - History - 20th century

Vietnam War, 1961-1975 - Social aspects

United States Moral conditions History 20th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

A war refined : reframing the narrative of the Vietnam War -- Same side, different wars: grunts and REMFs in Vietnam -- This place just isn't John Wayne: U.S. military bases in Vietnam -- Total war on boredom: the U.S. military's recreation program in Vietnam -- The things they bought: G.I. consumerism in Vietnam -- War zone wonderland: the strange world of "the Nam" -- From Vietnam to Iraq: reimagining the American way of war.

Sommario/riassunto

Popular representations of the Vietnam War tend to emphasize violence, deprivation, and trauma. By contrast, in Armed with Abundance, Meredith Lair focuses on the noncombat experiences of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, redrawing the landscape of the war so that swimming pools, ice cream, visits from celebrities, and other ""comforts"" share the frame with combat.To address a tenuous morale situation, military authorities, Lair reveals, wielded abundance to insulate soldiers--and, by extension, the American public--from



boredom and deprivation, making the project of war perhaps easier