Crash Course : : From the Good War to the Forever War / / H. Bruce Franklin.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Rutgers University Press Complete eBook-Package 2018
• VerfasserIn: Franklin, H. Bruce,
• Place / Publishing House: New Brunswick, NJ : : Rutgers University Press, , [2018]; ©2018
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: War Culture
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (384 p.) :; 12 b-w images

Growing up during the Second World War, H. Bruce Franklin believed what he was told: that America’s victory would lead to a new era of world peace. Like most Americans, he was soon led to believe in a world-wide Communist conspiracy that menaced the United States, forcing the nation into a disastrous war in Korea. But once he joined the U.S. Air Force and began flying top-secret missions as a navigator and intelligence officer, what he learned was eye-opening. He saw that even as the U.S. preached about peace and freedom, it was engaging in an endless cycle of warfare, bringing devastation and oppression to fledgling democracies across the globe. Now, after fifty years as a renowned cultural historian, Franklin offers a set of hard-learned lessons about modern American history. Crash Course is essential reading for anyone who wonders how America ended up where it is today: with a deeply divided and disillusioned populace, led by a dysfunctional government, and mired in unwinnable wars. It also finds startling parallels between America’s foreign military exploits and the equally brutal tactics used on the home front to crush organized labor, antiwar, and civil rights movements. More than just a memoir or a history book, Crash Course gives readers a unique firsthand look at the building of the American empire and the damage it has wrought. Shocking and gripping as any thriller, it exposes the endless deception of the American public, and reveals from inside how and why many millions of Americans have been struggling for decades against our own government in a fight for peace and justice.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- 1. The Last Victory? -- 2. The Bombs Bursting in Air, or How We Lost World War II -- 3. New Connections -- 4. Working for Communists during the Korean War -- 5. On the Water Front -- 6. Thirteen Confessions of a Cold Warrior -- 7. Wake-Up Time -- 8. Burning Illusions -- 9. French Connections -- 10. Coming Home -- 11. The War Comes Home -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Index -- ABOUT THE AUTHOR