American Samurai: Myth and Imagination in the Conduct of Battle in the First Marine Division 1941 1951
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Book Overview
American Samurai offers an innovative approach to military history by linking battlefield dynamics of the Pacific War to cultural, social, and institutional myth among marines of the First Division. Although it has elements of each, the book is neither a detailed campaign history nor a traditional unit history. It moves in roughly chronological order, but is organised thematically to explore how myth and imagination shaped the marines' actions. It blends a humanistic approach of letting the actors speak for themselves in letters and memoirs with insights from the social sciences.
Format:Hardcover
Language:English
ISBN:0521441684
ISBN13:9780521441681
Release Date:January 1994
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Length:316 Pages
Weight:2.10 lbs.
Dimensions:1.1" x 6.3" x 9.3"
Customer Reviews
2 ratings
Too academic for the average reader
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 15 years ago
I was a student of Prof Cameron at Old Dominion and it amazes me that people advocate book burning just because they disagree with his ideas. He was decried as a racist on campus and these fools denounce him for sitting in an ivory tower. This book is written as an academic work and should be treated as such. It has to be taken dispassionately, I'm a former Marine and not did not see anything revisionist in his work. If you are too afraid to hold a mirror to yourself don't read this book---stick to Clancy-he uses small word and easy sentences.
Its about time
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 24 years ago
Finally someone has the guts to admit what actually occured in the Pacific war in WW@. Both my uncles were Marines involved in the battles of Peleliu, Okinawa and Tarawa, and their experiences are mirrored exactly in this book. It was almost a ritual for the Marines, once after killing Japanese soldiers, to harvest various body parts, including teeth, ears, and even cutting off the heads and boiling the flesh off dead Japanese soldiers and sending them back to families in the states to use as cigarette trays! My uncles were taught from the first day of boot camp that the Japanese weren't even human and deserved such treatment. I congratulate the author for being brave enought to withstand the obvious charges of "revisionism" and "political correctness" that his book would elicit.
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