All American Boys - by Frank Kusch (Hardcover)

About the Book

This unique study argues that the draft dodgers who went to Canada during the Vietnam War were not always the anti-war radicals portrayed in popular culture. Many were the products of stable, conservative, middle class homes who were more interested in furthering their education and careers than in fighting in Southeast Asia. The conflict in Vietnam was just one cause among many for their deep sense of disaffection from the land of their birth. These expatriates remained quintessentially American, because evading the draft was in their opinion consistant with the very best American traditions of individualism and resistance to undue authority or state servitude.

Although the war was not the only or even the primary reason for their immigration to Canada, it was the final action in response to an increasing sense of alientation from America that many had felt since childhood. Kusch's work also raises questions about what it means to be an American. Intriguingly, it suggests the actions of these expatriates should be seen not merely as a drastic response to the Vietnam war, but as a commitment to the core ideals of American and European thought since the Enlightenment.

Book Synopsis

This unique study argues that the draft dodgers who went to Canada during the Vietnam War were not always the anti-war radicals portrayed in popular culture. Many were the products of stable, conservative, middle class homes who were more interested in furthering their education and careers than in fighting in Southeast Asia. The conflict in Vietnam was just one cause among many for their deep sense of disaffection from the land of their birth. These expatriates remained quintessentially American, because evading the draft was in their opinion consistant with the very best American traditions of individualism and resistance to undue authority or state servitude.

Although the war was not the only or even the primary reason for their immigration to Canada, it was the final action in response to an increasing sense of alientation from America that many had felt since childhood. Kusch's work also raises questions about what it means to be an American. Intriguingly, it suggests the actions of these expatriates should be seen not merely as a drastic response to the Vietnam war, but as a commitment to the core ideals of American and European thought since the Enlightenment.

Review Quotes

"All American Boys is an important addition to our literature on the Vietnam War. But it goes beyond that particular historical episode to examine with acute intelligence the phenomenon of disobedience to authority in any time. It gives us fresh insights into the complex motivations that led some Americans to decide to avoid military service."-Howard Zinn author of A People's History of the United States

"Based on extensive interviews with Americans who went to Canada in the 1960s to escape the Vietnam War draft, Frank Kusch's "All American Boys" explores the essential issues of who they were, why they went, and why, in many cases they chose to remain. Kusch advances original and provocative interpretations of his subjects, and fills an important gap in our knowledge of what happened to the Vietnam Generation and why."-George Herring University of Kentucky

"Frank Kusch's excellent study forces us to reconsider our understanding of what it meant "to go to Canada" during the Vietnam War....Drawing on oral interviews and manuscript sources, Kusch persuasively argues that for many of the young men who went to Canada, opposition to the Vietnam War was less important the social and cultural dislocations they experienced growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s."-Mark Bradley Associate Professor University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee author, Imagining Vietnam and American: The Making of Postcolonial Vietnam, 1919,1950

?This interesting volume examines self-proclaimed American "draft dodgers" who became expatriates in Canada during the Vietnam War, and refutes several myths about these individuals who opted to depart permanently from their home country....Recommended for general readers and all academic levels.?-Choice

"This interesting volume examines self-proclaimed American "draft dodgers" who became expatriates in Canada during the Vietnam War, and refutes several myths about these individuals who opted to depart permanently from their home country....Recommended for general readers and all academic levels."-Choice

About the Author

FRANK KUSCH is author of All American Boys: Draft Dodgers in Canada from the Vietnam War (Praeger, 2001). He holds degrees in history from Ohio University and the University of Saskatchewan. Historian and editor, he is currently working on a book about Richard Nixon and the antiwar movement.