Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Reviewed by Dennis E. Showalter , Colorado College. This book reflects two increasingly common approaches to writing history. The second seeks to diversify history-making by incorporating voices other than those of scholars. Pieces of history are found in artifacts and images as well as archives.
Stories become as important as documents.
Particularly in the twentieth-century West, war is considered the province of males. Masculine identity, whether it be presented as inherent or constructed, is considered central to war-making. The women warriors of popular culture are either completely degendered, like Demi Moore's GI Jane , or are presented as an offense to reason and natural order, like the female sniper in Full Metal Jacket , whose murder restores whatever harmony is possible in the upside-down universe of the Vietnam War. Yet in this context even traditional military historians increasingly recognize the contrast between mythic images and historic realities. War may be a gendered activity, but it is an experience common to both genders.