In the shadow of Vietnam: liberal nationalism and the problem of war

Abstract

This essay discusses how a group of post-Vietnam filmmakers and historians, in an attempt to reinvigorate liberal nationalism, began to celebrate the figure of the citizen soldier in America's past. These efforts were popular and acclaimed but failed to generate a critique of America's post-Vietnam professionalized military and the adventurist foreign policy that this military has helped to make possible.

Citizen Soldier; Vietnam; Nationalism