Militarization and the American Century: War, the United States and the World Since 1941(New Approaches to International History)

Taking American mobilization in WWII as its departure point, this book offers a concise but comprehensive introduction to the history of militarization in the United States since 1940. Exploring the ways in which war and the preparation for war have shaped and affected the United States during 'The American Century', Fitzgerald demonstrates how militarization has moulded relations between the US and the rest of the world. Providing a timely synthesis of key scholarship in a rapidly developing field, this book shows how national security concerns have affected issues as diverse as the development of the welfare state, infrastructure spending, gender relations and notions of citizenship. It also examines the way in which war is treated in the American imagination; how it has been depicted throughout this era, why its consequences have been made largely invisible and how Americans have often considered themselves to be reluctant warriors. In integrating domestic histories with international and transnational topics such as the American 'empire of bases' and the experience of American service personnel overseas, the author outlines the ways in which American militarization had, and still has, global consequences. Of interest to scholars, researchers and students of military history, war studies, US foreign relations and policy, this book addresses a burgeoning and dynamic field from which parallels and comparisons can be drawn for the modern day.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Liberal Empire and the Paradoxes of War: Militarization before 1941 Militarized Encounters: Armed Americans Abroad 'National Security' and the Militarization of Statecraft Bases, Borders and Gun Belts: The Evolution of Militarized Spaces in the United States and Beyond Military Service and the Meanings of Citizenship War in the American Imagination Conclusion Select Bibliography Index

About the Author :
David Fitzgerald is a Lecturer in History, University College Cork, Ireland, having previously held doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships at New York University, USA and University College Dublin, Ireland. He has published numerous works on counterinsurgency and military intervention, and his current research focuses on relations between the US Army and broader American society.

Review :
Informative and thorough ... Militarization and the American Century is an instructive and comprehensive book, a fine piece of scholarship that will inform and provoke. As David Fitzgerald shows in this intelligent, humane, and elegantly written book, since World War II the military has defined modern American society as much as anything else. Building on the recent scholarship on militarization, Fitzgerald reveals the fascinating extent to which the United States has been shaped by war. Fitzgerald's book offers a persuasive account of how American militarization accelerated in the context of Cold War competition, rather than grounding it in the Second World War moment. This innovative examination of everything from social welfare policies to base politics and the southern border reveals both the centrality of militarization to American domestic politics and foreign relations and its increasing invisibility. An important work for those interested in how militarism took hold and whether its tentacles can be disentangled.