Those Who Have Borne the Battle by James Wright

Those Who Have Borne the Battle by James Wright

This is an incisive history of America's complicated relationship with its armed forces. America has long celebrated its "citizen soldiers," true patriots who fought for their nation in Bunker Hill at Charleston, Pointe Du Hoc in Normandy, and beyond. But for all the monuments commemorating America's war dead and programmes created to support the living, the fact is that regular Americans have become increasingly alienated from the armed forces protecting them. Veterans struggle to return and fit in to a society that does not understand what they've gone through. In "Those Who Have Borne the Battle", history professor and former marine James Wright narrates the history of America's wars and warriors since the Revolution. He closely examines how Americans have mobilized and demobilized, tracking the changing definitions of heroism and sacrifice attached to those who serve. As Wright demonstrates, since World War II American military objectives have grown imprecise, poorly communicated to the civilian populace. Simultaneously the US army, once a body of volunteers, has become a band of professional warriors. Fewer citizens join in the sacrifice that war demands. Therefore, not only are martial aims opaque, but the military itself is less and less representative of American society at large. Spanning the nation's origins to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, "Those Who Have Borne the Battle" confronts the question of how Americans go to war, and what it means for those who fight. At a time when more and more veterans are returning home, it empathetically assesses the burdens carried by those fighting today's war in Iraq and Afghanistan, challenging Americans to do better for them.

The son of a WWII veteran, James Wright joined the marines at age 17, became a history professor at Dartmouth College in 1969, and served as president of Dartmouth from 1998-2009. Since 2005 he has visited military hospitals and has encouraged support for wounded veterans, efforts which have been featured in stories in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. he lives in New Hampshire.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781610390729
ISBN 10	1610390725
Title	Those Who Have Borne the Battle
Author	James Wright
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Publicaffairs
Year published	2012-05-01
Number of pages	368
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable