American Samurai
Myth and Imagination in the Conduct of Battle in the First Marine Division 1941–1951

A study of the cultural dynamics of ground combat.

Craig M. Cameron (Author)

9780521441681, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 January 1994

316 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.64 kg

"Only the most disinterested reader will fail to be challenged by American Samurai. For this reason alone, Cameron is to be commended and, one hopes, widely read." Social History

American Samurai offers an innovative approach to military history by linking battlefield dynamics of the Pacific War to cultural, social, and institutional myth among marines of the First Division. Although it has elements of each, the book is neither a detailed campaign history nor a traditional unit history. It moves in roughly chronological order, but is organised thematically to explore how myth and imagination shaped the marines' actions. It blends a humanistic approach of letting the actors speak for themselves in letters and memoirs with insights from the social sciences.

List of illustrations, maps and tables
Preface
Introduction: imagery and instrumentality in war
1. Mythic images of the Marines before Pearl Harbour
2. Creating Marine - and a masculine deal
3. Images of the Japanese 'other' defined: guadalcanal and beyond
4. 'Devil dogs' and 'dogfaces': images of the 'self' in Peleliu
5. Okinawa: technology empowers ideology
6. Collapse of the Pacific War images, 1945–1951
7. Rewriting the war
Notes
Selected bibliography.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], History of the Americas [HBJK]