War! What Is It Good For?: Black Freedom Struggles and the U.S. Military from World War II to Iraq (The John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture)
Brand: The University of North Carolina Press
Categories: Books, Politics & Social Sciences, Social Sciences



Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.9 x 9.1 inches
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1469613891
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Print length: 360 pages
Publication date: January 15, 2012
ISBN-13: 978-1469613895
Part of series: The John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture
subtitle: Hardcover – January 15, 2012
author: Kimberley Phillips Boehm
review: Editorial Reviews Review This work will be indispensable to understanding why so many black men and women serve, and how their service both advances and limits them. Essential. All levels/libraries.-- Choice A well-written volume, one worth reading.-- Journal of American History Will undoubtedly appeal to many scholars of American cultural history and African American history.-- Diplomatic History Required reading for scholars of the U.S. military and the (so-called) "long civil rights movement.-- American Historical Review This book is an important examination of the connections between military service and the civil rights movement.-- Southern Historian In this smart and moving book, historian Kimberley L. Phillips traces the intertwining of military service and the long civil rights movement even as she explores the often devastating effects of U.S. militarization before and after Jim Crow.-- Pacific Historical Review An important new book. . . . Beautifully written, it is essential reading for anyone with an interest in race and war in U.S. History.-- War Time blog Phillips delivers a new and refreshing view of the black freedom struggle, and the principal role that black veterans took in integrating the military and then taking the antiwar movement to the mainstream.-- Register of the Kentucky Historical Society Review Using a truly impressive body of research, Phillips offers a poignant account of African American soldiers compelled to fight racism in the army and U.S. society even as they took up arms against foreign enemies. Ultimately, this important study challenges us to rethink the very meaning of integration in the postwar United States.--Kevin Gaines, University of Michigan From the Inside Flap African Americans' long campaign for "the right to fight" forced Harry Truman to issue his 1948 executive order calling for equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces. Kimberley Phillips examines how blacks' participation in the nation's wars after Truman's order and their protracted struggles for equal citizenship galvanized a vibrant antiwar activism that reshaped their struggles for freedom. From the Back Cover African Americans' long campaign for "the right to fight" forced Harry Truman to issue his 1948 executive order calling for equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces. Kimberley Phillips examines how blacks' participation in the nation's wars after Truman's order and their protracted struggles for equal citizenship galvanized a vibrant antiwar activism that reshaped their struggles for freedom. About the Author Kimberley L. Phillips is dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and professor of history at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. Read more