myareads41's review against another edition
I definitely want to try to read the physical book version, but for some reason my brain could not wrap itself around the audiobook version and I wasn't retaining anything :(
gregbrown's review
More digestive than illuminating, Samet assembles a bric-a-brac of other author's takes that mostly make you wish you were reading those books instead.
I probably would have enjoyed this book if she stuck to a stronger or more centralized thesis, instead of meandering through postwar accounts, literature, and cinema to argue that WW2 and returning veterans affected them—no shit! So much of the book's actual meat is leaning on secondary sources making the same points, almost always with much more detail and real force. And the organization is just a disaster, feeling like she wanted to throw in every bit of research and personal interest that could be related to the book.
Just a very uneven reading experience, with small chunks where I was digging it between much larger stretches of hating the author.
I probably would have enjoyed this book if she stuck to a stronger or more centralized thesis, instead of meandering through postwar accounts, literature, and cinema to argue that WW2 and returning veterans affected them—no shit! So much of the book's actual meat is leaning on secondary sources making the same points, almost always with much more detail and real force. And the organization is just a disaster, feeling like she wanted to throw in every bit of research and personal interest that could be related to the book.
Just a very uneven reading experience, with small chunks where I was digging it between much larger stretches of hating the author.
redporchinverter's review
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
A bracing corrective to America's tendency toward sentimental self-mythologizing, Looking for the Good War casts a critical eye on the romantic narratives coloring our perception not just of World War II, but also the Civil War, westward expansion/conquest, and ultimately, our identity as a nation. In exposing the dangers of nostalgia, Elizabeth D. Samet convincingly argues that the only way we can begin to live up to our ideals in the present and future is to understand how we fought over and failed them in the past. Her analysis of our relationship to Shakespeare’s work is particularly illuminating.
briereader's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
2.75
As far as I can tell, this is an excellently researched and argued book. I was impressed by the sheer depth of the literary and film criticism that went into building the portrait of American perspective on the titular 'Good War' and tracing back the history of this enduring myth. Unfortunately, I was not the right reader for this book, or perhaps it just wasn't the right time for me to read it. The layers of nuance and depth went far over my head and I found it rather dense. I hope that I've learned at least a little, but I suspect it isn't nearly as much as I could have.
justabean_reads's review against another edition
challenging
informative
medium-paced
4.5
In which a civilian literature instructor from West Point military college explains why Stephen Ambrose, the guy who coined "the greatest generation" and every president since Ronald Reagan (but especially Ronald Reagan) are wrong about World War II, and probably also the US Civil War, and often Shakespeare. Samet has a lot of feelings on these topics.
The book essentially lays out the immensely mixed feelings about WWII in the US during and after the war, the questions around the morale of the troops and why they thought they were fighting, and how they adapted on return, this last often via the lens of Noir. She then follows the slow turn into forgetting and mythologising all of that, really kicking off during Vietnam, but hitting its peak with the 50th Anniversary and books like Band of Brothers. Finally, Samet talks about how the US Civil War also got mythologised, all of the harm that did, and the general perils of looking at one war through the lens of another. She keeps getting sidetracked into Shakespeare, I think mostly because she really likes Shakespeare, and it provides a thematic comparison.
It wasn't really much I hadn't run into before (though now I want to read Studs Terkel and watch Cry Havoc (1943)), but there's a comforting hum in reading someone who generally has the same taste and opinions (she liked E.B. Sledge's and Robert Leckie's books, and Twelve O'Clock High, and seems to want to set Saving Private Ryan on fire).
The book essentially lays out the immensely mixed feelings about WWII in the US during and after the war, the questions around the morale of the troops and why they thought they were fighting, and how they adapted on return, this last often via the lens of Noir. She then follows the slow turn into forgetting and mythologising all of that, really kicking off during Vietnam, but hitting its peak with the 50th Anniversary and books like Band of Brothers. Finally, Samet talks about how the US Civil War also got mythologised, all of the harm that did, and the general perils of looking at one war through the lens of another. She keeps getting sidetracked into Shakespeare, I think mostly because she really likes Shakespeare, and it provides a thematic comparison.
It wasn't really much I hadn't run into before (though now I want to read Studs Terkel and watch Cry Havoc (1943)), but there's a comforting hum in reading someone who generally has the same taste and opinions (she liked E.B. Sledge's and Robert Leckie's books, and Twelve O'Clock High, and seems to want to set Saving Private Ryan on fire).