21H.214  War and American Society

Writing in the wake of the Civil War, poet Walt Whitman insisted that "the real war will never get in the books." Throughout American history, war has fundamentally shaped the ways that Americans think about themselves, their fellow Americans, and the meanings of national citizenship. This subject examines how Americans have experienced war and represented it in the rapidly evolving media of communication in the twentieth century, and interprets history, politics, and popular culture in terms of changing ideas about American national identity.