Looking for the Good War

A wide-ranging work of cultural history and criticism that reexamines the impact of post–World War II myths of the “good war.” “Essential reading. This eloquent, far-ranging analysis of the national psyche goes as far as any book I’ve ever read toward explaining the peculiar American yen for war and more war.” —Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and Beautiful Country Burn Again In Looking for the Good War, Elizabeth D. Samet examines the literature, art, and culture that emerged after World War II, bringing her expertise as a professor of English at West Point to bear on the complexity of the postwar period in national life. She exposes the confusion about American identity that was expressed during and immediately after the war, and the deep national ambivalence toward war, violence, and veterans—a history that was suppressed in subsequent decades by a dangerously sentimental attitude toward the United States’