The My Lai Massacre in American history and memory
The My Lai Massacre in American history and memory
This book examines the response of American society to the massacre and its ambiguous place in American national memory. The author argues that the massacre revelations left many Americans untroubled, and it was only when the soldiers most immediately responsible came to be tried that the controversy really came to public attention. He finds that, contrary to interpretations of the Vietnam conflict as an unhealed national trauma or wound, many Americans have assimilated the war and its violence rather too well, and they were able to do so even when that violence was most conspicuous and current. Consistent with the view that US soldiers have subsequently been cast in national culture as the conflict’s principal victims, it was the American perpetrators of the massacre and not the Vietnamese they brutalized who, even in the case of My Lai, became the central object of popular concern.
9780719068904
Manchester University Press
Oliver, K.J.
928f8050-9c38-47a8-9121-1f60437dfc1e
2006
Oliver, K.J.
928f8050-9c38-47a8-9121-1f60437dfc1e
Oliver, K.J.
(2006)
The My Lai Massacre in American history and memory
,
Manchester, UK.
Manchester University Press, 312pp.
Abstract
This book examines the response of American society to the massacre and its ambiguous place in American national memory. The author argues that the massacre revelations left many Americans untroubled, and it was only when the soldiers most immediately responsible came to be tried that the controversy really came to public attention. He finds that, contrary to interpretations of the Vietnam conflict as an unhealed national trauma or wound, many Americans have assimilated the war and its violence rather too well, and they were able to do so even when that violence was most conspicuous and current. Consistent with the view that US soldiers have subsequently been cast in national culture as the conflict’s principal victims, it was the American perpetrators of the massacre and not the Vietnamese they brutalized who, even in the case of My Lai, became the central object of popular concern.
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Published date: 2006
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Local EPrints ID: 12281
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/12281
ISBN: 9780719068904
PURE UUID: cb1073d6-d0ba-4974-840a-a0dc49ab520a
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Date deposited: 31 Aug 2005
Last modified: 23 Jul 2022 01:40
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