Race and Gender at War: Writing American Military History

Fresh perspectives on the implications of gender and race in US military history from a diverse group of scholars in the field of war and society

Race and Gender at War is a collection of essays that illuminates ways that race and gender have persistently shaped the military history of the United States.

Editors Lesley J. Gordon and Andrew J. Huebner showcase historians with varied research agendas in the field of ＂war and society,＂ a fertile area of inquiry that shares space (and often overlaps) with operational studies inside the broader field of military history. Chronicling more than 150 years of American history, the essays in this volume demonstrate that the tensions and injustices surrounding race, gender, and the military remain relevant and controversial, and continue to roil American politics, society, and culture to this day.

Spanning the two centuries from the 1830s to the present, the collection examines topics such as Choctaw Natives who served in the Confederate Army, the trailblazing but fraught experiences of Black servicemen from the Civil War through World War I, the hypersexualized images of World War II servicemen, and the varied and mutable roles of women in the armed services. Utilizing diverse methodologies, the book examines how these factors influenced everything from military policy to civilian experiences, encompassing topics like martial rhetoric, citizenship, propaganda, and patriotism.

CONTRIBUTORS

Kevin Adams / Amanda Bellows / Kari L. Boyd-Weisenberger / Michele Curran Cornell / Lesley J. Gordon / Andrew J. Huebner / Gregory Mixon / Caroline Wood Newhall / Heather Marie Stur / Patrick T. Troester / Chad L. Williams / Fay A. Yarbrough

Lesley J. Gordon holds the Charles G. Summersell Chair of Southern History at the University of Alabama. Her publications include General George E. Pickett in Life and Legend, Inside the Confederate Nation: Essays in Honor of Emory M. Thomas, and A Broken Regiment: The 16th Connecticut’s Civil War.

Andrew J. Huebner is professor of history at the University of Alabama. He is author of Love and Death in the Great War, The Warrior Image: Soldiers in American Culture from the Second World War to the Vietnam Era, and coauthor of The Unfinished Nation.