Waged for a just cause and culminating in total victory; World War II was America’s “good war.†Yet for millions of GIs overseas; the war did not end with Germany and Japan’s surrender. The Good Occupation chronicles America’s transition from wartime combatant to postwar occupier; by exploring the intimate thoughts and feelings of the ordinary servicemen and women who participated―often reluctantly―in the difficult project of rebuilding nations they had so recently worked to destroy.When the war ended; most of the seven million Americans in uniform longed to return to civilian life. Yet many remained on active duty; becoming the “after-army†tasked with bringing order and justice to societies ravaged by war. Susan Carruthers shows how American soldiers struggled to deal with unprecedented catastrophe among millions of displaced refugees and concentration camp survivors while negotiating the inevitable tensions that arose between victors and the defeated enemy. Drawing on thousands of unpublished letters; diaries; and memoirs; she reveals the stories service personnel told themselves and their loved ones back home in order to make sense of their disorienting and challenging postwar mission.The picture Carruthers paints is not the one most Americans recognize today. A venture undertaken by soldiers with little appetite for the task has crystallized; in the retelling; into the “good occupation†of national mythology: emblematic of the United States’ role as a bearer of democracy; progress; and prosperity. In real time; however; “winning the peace†proved a perilous business; fraught with temptation and hazard.
#3801232 in Books 1999-01-15 1999-02-14Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 10.82 x .74 x 7.74l; 2.06 #File Name: 0674392051296 pages
Review
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful. History not written by the victorsBy Nathan E HopsonThe sheer volume of studies on Japan by putatively Western authors only serves to confirm the fact that Japan is not well understood. This study takes one step in an interesting direction by introducing non-Japanese readers to Hiraizumi; one of the most enigmatic places in medieval Japanese history.This city marks both a physical and cultural boundary between Yamato Japan and the world of the Emishi. In much of Japanese historiography this subject goes almost completely untreated; which is not surprising given that it reveals a volatile heterogeneity which is often suppressed in Japan.Hiraizumi was built up by Emishi descendents in the position of what the Chinese called "barbarians over barbarians" -- they were given titles and dispensations in return for ruling over their people as colonial representatives. Yet the Fujiwara family retained a strong sense of pride in their "barbarian" northern roots. They built up a city which rivaled and perhaps even surpassed Kyoto in financial and cultural prosperity during its peak.But this could not go unpunished...The author's erudition and refusal to follow the beaten path of historiography is commendable. This is unquestionably a five-star book; save that the writing is a little jumbled in places and the pictures are of surprisingly varied quality; some appearing to have been taken with a disposable camera during a sake drinking bout. This lack of professionalism is dismaying at best; and mars an otherwise fabulous book.Think you know Japanese history? Try again.
