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Echoes of Combat: Trauma, Memory, and the Vietnam War
Using psychological trauma as its guiding metaphor, Echoes of Combat is the first book to explore the parallels between the healing of Vietnam veterans and Americans' collective recovery from the war. Drawing on such diverse sources as films, novels, television series, political speeches, monuments, medical texts, and inside accounts of the men's movement, Fred Turner shows how the healing narratives of individuals have allowed us to transform our recollections of our aggression in Vietnam into tales of national sacrifice.
- GenresHistory
296 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
29 people want to read
About the author
Fred Turner
35 books43 followersFred Turner is an American academic. He is the Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication at Stanford University, having formerly served as department chair.
Before joining Stanford as an associate professor, Turner taught Communication at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned a B.A. in English and American Literature from Brown University, an M.A. in English from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of California, San Diego. In 2015, he was appointed as Harry and Norman Chandler Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at Stanford.
Before joining academia, Turner worked as a journalist for over ten years writing for The Boston Phoenix and Boston Sunday Globe, among others.
Before joining Stanford as an associate professor, Turner taught Communication at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned a B.A. in English and American Literature from Brown University, an M.A. in English from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of California, San Diego. In 2015, he was appointed as Harry and Norman Chandler Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at Stanford.
Before joining academia, Turner worked as a journalist for over ten years writing for The Boston Phoenix and Boston Sunday Globe, among others.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 15, 2023
Good: Lots of information on specific films/books which shaped the narrative on Vietnam, as well as how media shapes public perceptions and history. Some interesting analysis related to civil-military relations and how the experience of soldiers in Vietnam stand in for the psychological experience of a nation from 60-80s.
Bad: The book doesn't know if it wants to be a media studies book or a sociology and psychology book. I found the format to be kind of unfocused, because it transitions from talking about cultural products of the war to social phenomenon like paramilitary groups to war memorials. Skipping over so many different topics does not do each of them justice.
Annoying: Author is repetitive at times, and so the book feels like a drag in the latter half. Particularly, he said multiple times that X is a path to healing, but by using this "path to healing", it absolves the leaders of the war and the American people of responsibility. The opinion here seems pretty out of place (excessively polemical) as it doesn't add anything to the actually interesting content of the book. And the book isn't meant to be an argument trying to hold people responsible for the war, so I'm not sure why this part is even included.
The writing style seems way too academic, like the author is writing for a college essay rather than a general population, which I presume to be the intended audience.
Bad: The book doesn't know if it wants to be a media studies book or a sociology and psychology book. I found the format to be kind of unfocused, because it transitions from talking about cultural products of the war to social phenomenon like paramilitary groups to war memorials. Skipping over so many different topics does not do each of them justice.
Annoying: Author is repetitive at times, and so the book feels like a drag in the latter half. Particularly, he said multiple times that X is a path to healing, but by using this "path to healing", it absolves the leaders of the war and the American people of responsibility. The opinion here seems pretty out of place (excessively polemical) as it doesn't add anything to the actually interesting content of the book. And the book isn't meant to be an argument trying to hold people responsible for the war, so I'm not sure why this part is even included.
The writing style seems way too academic, like the author is writing for a college essay rather than a general population, which I presume to be the intended audience.
Displaying 1 of 1 review