American War Stories

“Boyle excavates America’s most sacred martial myths with paleontological care, unearthing a surprise from every inch of sediment. Beyond curating the struggles and accidents of history, she expertly shows how they have been reshaped by powerful interests into an apparently natural landscape. In doing so, American War Stories gives us a language for the tectonics of received understanding.”

~Roger Stahl, professor of communications, University of Georgia

“American War Stories starts with the important idea that, in recent years, a pernicious dedication to dubiously authentic ‘soldier’s stories’ and paid patriotism has naturalized a particular kind of militarist triumphalism that obscures the events of the past and renders a workable understanding of the present impossible. Delving into a range of genres of this storytelling­—film, memorials, memoirs, half-time shows—Boyle offers a compelling reconstruction of some of these stories as they serve the needs of an all-volunteer military and a population that is increasingly removed from both military service and the direct costs of war. She argues that these stories enable the emergence of a proud narrative of well-meaning underdogs serving the needs of a waiting world to come to be seen as an obvious, plain truth rather than a violent, blinding invention.”

~Kristin Hass, author of Carried to the Wall and Sacrificing Soldiers on the National Mall