War on the Silver Screen - by Glen Jeansonne & David Luhrssen (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Americans have been almost constantly at war since 1917. In addition to two world wars, the United States has fought proxy wars, propaganda wars, and a "war on terror," among others. But even with the constant presence of war in American life, much of what Americans remember about those conflicts comes from Hollywood depictions.

In War on the Silver Screen Glen Jeansonne and David Luhrssen vividly demonstrate how war movies have burned the images and impressions of those wars onto the American psyche more concretely than has the reality of the wars themselves. That is, our feelings about wars are generated less by what we learn through study and discourse than by powerful cinematic images and dialogue. Films are compressed, intense, and immediate and often a collective experience rather than a solitary one. Actors and drama provide the visceral impact necessary to form perceptions of history that are much more enduring than those generated by other media or experiences.

War on the Silver Screen draws on more than a century of films and history, including classics such as All Quiet on the Western Front, Apocalypse Now, and The Hurt Locker, to examine the legacy of American cinema on twentieth- and twenty-first-century attitudes about war.

Review Quotes

"Jeansonne and Luhrssen have cleverly used movies about American wars to point out that what we often know--or remember--about those difficult events is what we saw in the movies. So, what the movies tell us about wars is far more important than the entertainment they provide. Does that mean our collective memories of the most dangerous and important events in American history are accurate? This well-conceived book provides a fascinating answer. If you can only read one book this season about the movies, this is it."--James W. Cortada, senior research fellow at the Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota-- (4/14/2014 12:00:00 AM)

About the Author

GLEN JEANSONNE is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the author of The Life of Herbert Hoover: Fighting Quaker, 1928-1933. DAVID LUHRSSEN is the arts and entertainment editor at Milwaukee's Shepherd Express and has worked as a film critic for more than twenty years. He is the author of Mamoulian: Life on Stage and Screen.