Armed with Abundance

Consumerism and Soldiering in the Vietnam War

Nonfiction, History, Military, Vietnam War, Asian, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Cultural Studies, Popular Culture
Cover of the book Armed with Abundance by Meredith H. Lair, The University of North Carolina Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Meredith H. Lair ISBN: 9780807869185
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press Publication: November 28, 2011
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press Language: English
Author: Meredith H. Lair
ISBN: 9780807869185
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication: November 28, 2011
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Language: English

Popular representations of the Vietnam War tend to emphasize violence, deprivation, and trauma. By contrast, in Armed with Abundance, Meredith Lair focuses on the noncombat experiences of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, redrawing the landscape of the war so that swimming pools, ice cream, visits from celebrities, and other "comforts" share the frame with combat.

To address a tenuous morale situation, military authorities, Lair reveals, wielded abundance to insulate soldiers--and, by extension, the American public--from boredom and deprivation, making the project of war perhaps easier and certainly more palatable. The result was dozens of overbuilt bases in South Vietnam that grew more elaborate as the war dragged on. Relying on memoirs, military documents, and G.I. newspapers, Lair finds that consumption and satiety, rather than privation and sacrifice, defined most soldiers' Vietnam deployments. Abundance quarantined the U.S. occupation force from the impoverished people it ostensibly had come to liberate, undermining efforts to win Vietnamese "hearts and minds" and burdening veterans with disappointment that their wartime service did not measure up to public expectations. With an epilogue that finds a similar paradigm at work in Iraq, Armed with Abundance offers a unique and provocative perspective on modern American warfare.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Popular representations of the Vietnam War tend to emphasize violence, deprivation, and trauma. By contrast, in Armed with Abundance, Meredith Lair focuses on the noncombat experiences of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, redrawing the landscape of the war so that swimming pools, ice cream, visits from celebrities, and other "comforts" share the frame with combat.

To address a tenuous morale situation, military authorities, Lair reveals, wielded abundance to insulate soldiers--and, by extension, the American public--from boredom and deprivation, making the project of war perhaps easier and certainly more palatable. The result was dozens of overbuilt bases in South Vietnam that grew more elaborate as the war dragged on. Relying on memoirs, military documents, and G.I. newspapers, Lair finds that consumption and satiety, rather than privation and sacrifice, defined most soldiers' Vietnam deployments. Abundance quarantined the U.S. occupation force from the impoverished people it ostensibly had come to liberate, undermining efforts to win Vietnamese "hearts and minds" and burdening veterans with disappointment that their wartime service did not measure up to public expectations. With an epilogue that finds a similar paradigm at work in Iraq, Armed with Abundance offers a unique and provocative perspective on modern American warfare.

More books from The University of North Carolina Press

Cover of the book The Freedom of the Streets by Meredith H. Lair
Cover of the book Caribbean Exchanges by Meredith H. Lair
Cover of the book Cooper's Leather-Stocking Novels by Meredith H. Lair
Cover of the book Union in Peril by Meredith H. Lair
Cover of the book Mountain Nature by Meredith H. Lair
Cover of the book Imagining the Middle East by Meredith H. Lair
Cover of the book Rising Wind by Meredith H. Lair
Cover of the book Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination by Meredith H. Lair
Cover of the book Between Churchill and Stalin by Meredith H. Lair
Cover of the book Beyond Blackface by Meredith H. Lair
Cover of the book Colonial Entanglement by Meredith H. Lair
Cover of the book Gendered Spaces by Meredith H. Lair
Cover of the book Reconstruction's Ragged Edge by Meredith H. Lair
Cover of the book Turing's Man by Meredith H. Lair
Cover of the book Border War by Meredith H. Lair
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy