Title: American exceptionalism in the age of globalization : the specter of Vietnam /
Authors: Spanos, William V.
Publisher: State University of New York Press,
Year: 2008
Subjects: American literature History and criticism; English literature History and criticism; National characteristics, American, in literature.; Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Literature and the war; Literature and history United States.; Exceptionalism United States.; America In literature.
Abstract: "In American Exceptionalism in the Age of Globalization, William V. Spanos explores three writers - Graham Greene, Philip Caputo, and Tim O'Brien - whose work devastatingly critiques the U.S. intervention in Vietnam and exposes the brutality of the Vietnam War. Utilizing poststructuralist theory, particularly that of Heidegger, Althusser, Foucault, and Said, Spanos argues that the Vietnam War disclosed the dark underside of the American exceptionalist ethos and, in so doing, speaks directly to America's war on terror in the aftermath of 9/11"--Jacket.
Contents: History and its specter : rethinking thinking in the post-Cold War age -- Althusser's "problematic" : vision and the Vietnam War -- Who killed Alden Pyle? : the oversight of oversight in Graham Greene's The quiet American -- Retrieving the thisness of the Vietnam War : a symptomatic reading of Philip Caputo's A rumor of war -- "The land is your enemy" : Tim O'Brien's Going after Cacciato -- American exceptionalism, the Jeremiad, and the frontier, before and after 9/11 : from the Puritans to the neo-con men -- Conclusion : the Vietnam War, 9/11, and its aftermath.