Americans and the Wars of the Twentieth Century (review)

In this slim volume, Jenel Virden attempts to discuss American participation in the major wars of the twentieth century through the lens of just war theory. In particular, the author provides an overview of the American government's rhetoric during wartime and action on the battlefield, but also expands her focus to investigate the home front in order "to test whether the application of theory to the way governments treat their own citizens during war can provide previously unarticulated insights into the broader issue of just war" (p. 7). This is an admirable approach, as too many histories seek to segment the battlefront from the home front in their discussions of America's wars. And it is as a general primer on America's twentieth century wars that this study succeeds. Chapters on World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War are all laid out identically, each containing sections labeled "The Pre-War Period," "Beginnings," "How the War Was Fought," "US Home Front," and "The Consequences." Virden does an excellent job of synthesizing the voluminous information on the fighting, diplomacy, economics, leadership, rhetoric, and home front issues of all four conflicts.

After providing her case studies, she ties all the information together in a chapter simply titled "Conclusions." It is in this chapter where she compares and contrasts the wars, using the idea of just war to critique the wars' origins, how they were fought, their conclusions, and notions of justice on the home front. In these conclusions, Virden makes some controversial assessments, such as her statement that "the targeting or indiscriminate killing of non-combatants… [makes] it difficult if not impossible to suggest the United States fought these wars justly"(p. 159). Further, after cataloguing numerous injustices on the American home front, she finds that "civil liberties and civil rights, and the American people, became the victims of wartime injustice"(p. 168). In a powerful epilogue, Virden critiques the Bush administration's War on Terror and shows how the detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and the mistreatment of inmates at Abu Ghraib prison, as well as the civil liberties questions raised by the Patriot Act, seem to suggest that America has learned very little from its past conduct in wartime.

Much of the information in Americans and the Wars of the Twentieth Century is quite useful and provocative, and this would be a fine selection for a survey course for undergraduates or someone with a general interest in the topic. In terms of construction, however, I had some reservations. Though the just war theme is the guiding force of the book, just war theory is dealt with substantially only in the introduction and conclusion. Increased discussion throughout the chapters would have linked the sections together concretely and made the author's conclusions even more powerful. For instance, the just nature of America's entry into the wars is dealt with in a complex way, but the comparative discussion of their beginnings is so brief in the "Conclusions" chapter that the implications of the similarities and differences of the wars' origins are never fully realized. With greater attention to just war theory throughout, more time might have been spent on expanding the author's analysis. But this is a criticism that comes from the fact that the questions being raised by the book are numerous and important. If the purpose of Americans and the Wars of the Twentieth Century is to start a conversation, then it has succeeded.