The Vietnam War in Popular Culture: The Influence of America's Most Controversial War on Everyday Life

Gr 9 Up—Combat veteran and professor Milam (Not A Gentleman's War: An Inside View of Junior Officers in the Vietnam War) has compiled 37 essays on what George Herring calls in the foreword "the war that never seemed to go away." In "Missing Home," Milam points out that popular culture can fill a gap for soldiers far from home and living under the stress of war. In addition, the war influenced American culture throughout active fighting and long after. Each chapter contains between three and five essays that range in length between 15 and 25 pages, and most contributors are connected with universities. The pieces explore movies and television extensively, as well as books, music, magazines ("The Cult of Playboy"), and miscellaneous topics. Some individual articles have a narrow focus (Werner Herzog movies; All in the Family), but taken as a whole, the two volumes (>During the War; After the War) are diverse, tackling, for instance, segregation, race and gender, and Chicano pop culture. Topic coverage ranges from a fairly scientific examination of the chemical elements of Agent Orange to a look at comic book heroes Iron Man and Super Green Beret. Individual entries include notes and, in some cases, a bibliography and/or further reading. The volumes are indexed separately and contain no photos or illustrations.