The War of My Generation: Youth Culture and the War on Terror

In the years since the 9/11 attacks, approximately four million Americans have turned eighteen each year and more than fifty million children have been born. These members of the millennial and post-millennial generation have come of age in a moment marked by increased anxiety about terrorism, two protracted wars, and policies that have raised questions about the U.S. strategies abroad and at home. The War of My Generation offers the first essay collection to focus specifically on how the terrorist attacks and their aftermath have shaped this new generation of Americans.

Drawing from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, and literary studies, the essays cover a wide range of topics, from graphic war images in the classroom to computer games designed to promote military recruitment to books about parents in the combat zone. David Kieran and the contributors address millennials, intersections with contemporary questions about terrorism, U.S. militarism, and U.S. foreign policy, asserting that young people are both consumers and producers of narratives that contribute to, modify, and resist discourses about 9/11 and the War on Terror. Young people have not been shielded from the attacks or from the wars and policy debates that followed; instead, they have been active participants. One study reveals that the “lived memories” of the attack have led some to link the September 11th attacks to the Holocaust as moments in which innocent people suffered but resiliently persevered. Another contribution discusses how Muslim youth in Silicon Valley embraced the rhetoric of the Civil Rights movement as they fought against the harassment, governmental surveillance, and denial of rights that has plagued them since 9/11.

Revealing how young people understand the War on Terror - and how adults understand the way young people think - The War of My Generation offers groundbreaking research on catastrophic events still fresh in our minds.

About the Author :
David Kieran is a visiting assistant professor of history at Skidmore College. He is the author of Forever Vietnam: How a Divisive War Changed American Public Memory.

Review :
"The War of My Generation is, in some ways, a classic American studies volume, combining a range of disciplinary methods, cultural resources, and popular voices to paint a complex picture of US life at a particular historical moment. Readers with an interdisciplinary bent, who are trained to hunt for diversity where there seems uniformity, will find The War of My Generation compelling."-- "American Literary History Online Review" "This collection of essays has created a robust discussion of many aspects of how young people may or may not connect with various actions that are part of the war on terror ... The War of My Generation engages the reader in the difficult topics related to the relationship of the military and the personal decision of youth."-- "IRSCL Reviews" "[A] welcome collection of essays ... The War of My Generation evinces the historian William Appleman Williams's pithy observation that in the United States empire is, and has long been, 'a way of life.'"-- "The Chronicle of Higher Education"