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The Best War Ever: America and World War II (The American Moment) |  | Author: Michael C.C. Adams
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
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Seller: bay-city-books
Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 22285
Media: Paperback
Pages: 208
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.7 x 0.5
ISBN: 0801846978
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.5373
EAN: 9780801846977
ASIN: 0801846978
Publication Date: November 1, 1993
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Was it really such a "good war"? It was, if popular memory is to be trusted. We knew who the enemy was. We knew what we were fighting for. The war was good for the economy. It was liberating for women. It was a war of tanks and airplanes -- a cleaner war than World War I. Americans were united. Soldiers were proud. It was a time of prosperity, sound morality, and power. But according to historian Michael Adams, our memory is distorted, and it has left us with a misleading -- even dangerous -- legacy. Challenging many of our common assumptions about the period, Adams argues that our experience of World War II was positive but also disturbing, creating problems that continue to plague us today.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 10
 Best War Ever August 6, 2010
DC (WVA)
This book is not revisionist at all, the author uses primary sources and debunks some of the silly myths about the US in WW2. Well worth a read.
A Revisionist Account of World War II May 21, 2009
Z. Wimmer
Adams' purpose of writing the book is to make aware the myths that have been created surrounding WWII. Adams states that the questionable aspects surrounding the war, such as the discrimination endured by African Americans, females, homosexuals, and Japanese-Americans, are left out, while the good things about the war are exaggerated. Because of this WWII is not the best war ever according to Adams.
Adams says that the existence of the WWII distortions are not entirely the fault of the American public. It is also the fault of the Federal Government and the media. The government censored controversial material during the war and only delivered to the public details that were uplifting and beneficial to the cause. The media also used the war to its advantage, promoting products using references to the war.
Adams also goes into detail the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome the soldiers endured during the war.
The book does go into some historical accounts of WWII. Most of Adams' references though were secondary sources. I would have liked to see him use more primary sources which would have provided more authenticity and credibility to the book. I do recommend the book if you are looking for a quick read about WWII, but if you are looking for a military history about WWII, this is not the book for you.
 Politically correct polemic masquerading as history January 11, 2009
William J. Shepherd (Crofton, MD USA)
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
Should rate no stars if that were permitted. As another reviewer so aptly put it, "the worst book ever." The extreme politically correct view of World War II. America was so bad that perhaps the author believes the world would have been better off with the victory of the Axis powers.
Should be included in anyone's WWII reading August 22, 2008
J. Curtis
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Some of the negative reviews for this book are puzzling. I found it well written and appropriately argued. I think it is important, particularly for a younger generation of which I'm a part, to understand a more accurate picture of WWII. For one, maybe we shouldn't feel so bad about ourselves when we judge our generation against "the greatest." And perhaps soldiers in Vietnam did not face such different conditions than the boys spread around the world in the 40s. If read with a true desire to learn, any supposed slant some feel this book professes should not bear heavily on the reader.
The book offers many thinking points such as what young men expected to be a part of in Vietnam after the WWII portrayal to which they were exposed and what the role of the teenager and woman became during and after the war. Most of the information in Adams' book is not new, but it is arranged well and framed into the context of how perceptions of this generation, time period, and supposed American perfection at war are often based upon lore and pride rather than fact and pragmatism.
Poorly Justified and Opinionated Assertions December 27, 2007
GrummanTBF (the workbench)
5 out of 15 found this review helpful
I was also unfortunate enough to have to read this book for a college history class. During the class the majority of students (most of whom were adult returning students, military veterans, or history buffs) voted to ask to have it removed from the required list for the class. I can only hope the administration listened.
First off, though the book is published by Johns Hopkins University Press, and even proudly displays this fact on it's back cover in bold, do not be lulled into assuming you are getting the work of Johns Hopkins faculty. The author rather lists his affiliation as being with Northern Kentucky University.
It seems as though liberal academia, having pretty much destroyed Americans' faith and pride in just about everything else good and successful in their culture and history, are still not satisfied. Therefore, the need exists to go after the last bastion of American historical pride. That of the pride Americans still do, and should, feel at their key role in eradicating nazism and Imperial Japanese savagery, and largely saving both the western and eastern world from those scourges of evil.
When reading this book, one is immediately struck by the condescending attitude and tone. It is obvious that we, the ignorant and foolish Joe Sixpacks of the public, are dangerously misinformed about World War 2 just like we are about everything else, and only the endless indignant moaning of America-hating academia can save us by teaching us what and how we need to think.
Sadly, I think many young college students not familiar with WW2 history will believe much of the nonsense spewed forth between the covers of this "work." People like myself and others I have studied history with, who had the benefit of a parent who served in WW2 and/or have spent a lifetime studying the Second World War know the truths. No, it was not a perfect time, and the men and women of that period often realized many of those shortcomings, many worked to change them for the better. It was not nearly the dark and shameful period that is portrayed in this book, as much as some would like it to be.
All of the above represent only my personal opinions.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 10
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