V Was for Victory.... (6)

Politics and American Culture During WWII (6). John Morton Blum. New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1976.

Why read it? Perspective from the Home Front in World War II. The effects of American propaganda on the American people. A completely different view of a war from our more recent wars, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.

Ideas:

“Whether consciously or inadvertently, the reporters tended to find in the young men they described the traits that Americans generally esteemed.” p. 55.

“ ‘These Are the Generals,’ a series of articles published during 1943 in the Saturday Evening Post, linked athletic prowess, academic mediocrity and success in command.” p. 57.

“American boys were ex-grocery boys, ex-highway laborers, ex-bank clerks, ex-school boys, boys with a clean record…not killers.” p. 59.

“Perhaps because they were by the 1940s so dominantly an industrial and urban people, Americans selected their heroes disproportionately from the ranks of country boys.” p. 59.

“The habit of joyful hard work, one ingredient of the cult of success, had always beguiled the Saturday Evening Post, which built its circulation…upon continual publication of updated Alger stories.” p. 60.

To be continued.