American War Stories: Veteran-Writers and the Politics of Memoir (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781625346315)

Trust in media and political institutions is at an all-time low in America, yet veterans enjoy an unmatched level of credibility and moral authority. Their war stories have become crucial testimony about the nation's leadership, foreign policies, and wars. Veterans' memoirs are not simply self-revelatory personal chronicles but contributions to political culture--to the stories circulated and incorporated into national myths and memories.

American War Stories centers on an extensive selection of memoirs written by veterans of the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan conflicts--including Brian Turner's My Life as a Foreign Country, Marcus Luttrell's Lone Survivor, and Camilo Mejia's Road from ar Ramadi--to explore the complex relationship between memory and politics in the context of postmodern war. Placing veterans' stories in conversation with broader cultural and political discourses, Myra Mendible analyzes the volatile mix of agendas, identities, and issues informing veteran-writers' narrative choices to argue that their work plays an important, though underexamined, political function in how Americans remember and judge their wars.

Author: Myra Mendible
ISBN-10: 162534631X
ISBN-13: 9781625346315
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
Language: English
Published: 12/17/2021
Pages: 216
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.80d