Hanoi Jane: War, Sex, and Fantasies of Betrayal (Culture, Politics, and the Cold War)
This is not a narrowly focused effort to compare the 'real' Jane Fonda to the image of 'Hanoi Jane.' Rather, Lembcke shows how Fonda's demonization played an important part in a powerful right-wing campaign to attribute American defeat in Vietnam to left-wing scapegoats and to reconstitute U.S. power as well as the ideal of aggressive masculinity.(Christian G. Appy, author of Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides)Pulsing with brilliant insights and invaluable scholarship, Hanoi Jane is much more than a biography of a single myth. It is an exploration of some of the tangled cultural, psychological, and historical strands that constitute American memory of the Vietnam War, memory with profound influence on American culture and behavior in the last quarter of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first.(H. Bruce Franklin, author of Vietnam and Other American Fantasies)Jane Fonda's staunch positions during the Vietnam war gave birth the mythos of Hanoi Jane. Hanoi Jane delves into the mythology constructed around Jane Fonda, who was known for visiting North Vietnam, visiting prisoners of war during the infamous conflict. Outspoken against the war, she has gained her own infamy, and the figure Hanoi Jane is constructed as what undermined America's efforts during the war. Analyzing the mythos of Hanoi Jane, Hanoi Jane is an intriguing and fascinating take that shouldn't be overlooked by any history collection focusing on the Vietnam war.(Midwest Book Review)As Lembcke tackles the question of where the moniker Hanoi Jane first appeared, he offers fascinating anecedotal evidence of the fervent beliefs that continue to fuel the betrayal myth in the twenty-first century.... In this provocative study, Lembcke probes the way in which political dissent combined with American anxieties about class, gender, and celebrity to vilify a woman who followed her political conscience.(Women's Review of Books)Lembke argues that popular perception of Jane Fonda's trip to North Vietnam as representative of left-wing subversive anti-Americanism is a part of right-wing myth making. Recommended [for] general readers and undergraduate students.(Choice1900-01-00)In his provocative book, Lembcke, a Vietnam veteran, challenges many of the conventional wisdoms surrounding the Vietnam War.... [It] is crucial that we carefully examine the work of Lembcke and exorcise some of the ghosts of Vietnam and their contemporary political manipulation in support of war and militarism.(The Journal of American Culture1900-01-00)Hanoi Jane is an important contribution to scholarship on American public memory-making of the Vietnam War and our efforts to consolidate Vietnam with the Gulf wars through the use of a political trope. It is a well-researched book that explores the national identity, the politics of war narratives, gendered constructions and anxieties during the post-wartime, public memory, and the power of myth-making.(Journal of Vietnamese Studies1900-01-00)