Looking for the good war : American amnesia and the violent pursuit of happiness
(Book)

In Looking for the Good War, Elizabeth D. Samet reexamines the literature, art, and culture that emerged after World War II, bringing her expertise as a professor of English at West Point to bear on the complexity of the postwar period in national life. She exposes the confusion about American identity that was expressed during and immediately after the war, and the deep national ambivalence toward war, violence, and veterans?all of which were suppressed in subsequent decades by a dangerously sentimental attitude toward the United States? “exceptional” history and destiny.