Beth Bailey – författare

The 1960s continue to be the subject of passionate debate and political controversy, a touchstone in struggles over the meaning of the American past and the direction of the American future. Amid the polemics and the myths, making sense of the Sixties and its legacies presents a challenge. This book is for all those who want to take it on. Because there are so many facets to this unique and transformative era, this volume offers multiple approaches and perspectives. The first section gives a lively narrative overview of the decade's major policies, events, and cultural changes. The second presents ten original interpretative essays from prominent historians about significant and controversial issues from the Vietnam War to the sexual revolution, followed by a concise encyclopedia articles organized alphabetically. This section could stand as a reference work in itself and serves to supplement the narrative. Subsequent sections include short topical essays, special subjects, a brief chronology, and finally an extensive annotated bibliography with ample information on books, films, and electronic resources for further exploration.With interesting facts, statistics, and comparisons presented in almanac style as well as the expertise of prominent scholars, The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s is the most complete guide to an enduringly fascinating era.

The 1960s continue to be the subject of passionate debate and political controversy, a touchstone in struggles over the meaning of the American past and the direction of the American future. Amid the polemics and the myths, making sense of the Sixties and its legacies presents a challenge. This book is for all those who want to take it on. Because there are so many facets to this unique and transformative era, this volume offers multiple approaches and perspectives. The first section gives a lively narrative overview of the decade's major policies, events, and cultural changes. The second presents ten original interpretative essays from prominent historians about significant and controversial issues from the Vietnam War to the sexual revolution, followed by a concise encyclopedia articles organized alphabetically. This section could stand as a reference work in itself and serves to supplement the narrative. Subsequent sections include short topical essays, special subjects, a brief chronology, and finally an extensive annotated bibliography with ample information on books, films, and electronic resources for further exploration.With interesting facts, statistics, and comparisons presented in almanac style as well as the expertise of prominent scholars, The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s is the most complete guide to an enduringly fascinating era.

Follow history with a spirited narrative that tells the captivating stories of all people in the United States in Norton's best-selling A PEOPLE AND A NATION: A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, BRIEF EDITION, 11E. Written by award-winning historians and acclaimed authors, this revised edition clearly depicts historic change -- from race, gender, economics and public policy to family life, popular culture, social movements, international relations and warfare. The first book to focus on U.S. social history, this edition now emphasizes the place of the U.S. in international history and the world. Streamlined chapters, new learning features and more than 90 maps support learning, while a new digital version and optional MindTap and Infuse digital resources help you envision what life was like in the past. This edition is available as a complete edition or split editions: VOLUME I: TO 1877 (Chs. 1–14), and VOLUME II: SINCE 1865 (Chs. 14–29).

Follow history with a spirited narrative that tells the captivating stories of all people in the United States in Norton's best-selling A PEOPLE AND A NATION: A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, BRIEF EDITION, 11E. Written by award-winning historians and acclaimed authors, this revised edition clearly depicts historic change -- from race, gender, economics and public policy to family life, popular culture, social movements, international relations and warfare. The first book to focus on U.S. social history, this edition now emphasizes the place of the U.S. in international history and the world. Streamlined chapters, new learning features and more than 90 maps support learning, while a new digital version and optional MindTap and Infuse digital resources help you envision what life was like in the past. This edition is available as a complete edition or split editions: VOLUME I: TO 1877 (Chs. 1–14), and VOLUME II: SINCE 1865 (Chs. 14–29).

Follow history with a spirited narrative that tells the captivating stories of all people in the United States in Norton's best-selling A PEOPLE AND A NATION: A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, BRIEF EDITION, 11E. Written by award-winning historians and acclaimed authors, this revised edition clearly depicts historic change -- from race, gender, economics and public policy to family life, popular culture, social movements, international relations and warfare. The first book to focus on U.S. social history, this edition now emphasizes the place of the U.S. in international history and the world. Streamlined chapters, new learning features and more than 90 maps support learning, while a new digital version and optional MindTap and Infuse digital resources help you envision what life was like in the past. This edition is available as a complete edition or split editions: VOLUME I: TO 1877 (Chs. 1–14), and VOLUME II: SINCE 1865 (Chs. 14–29).

Think history is dull? No way -- and you're about to find out for yourself. Kamensky/Bailey/Sheriff/Chudacoff/Logevall/Blight's A PEOPLE AND A NATION: A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, 12 Edition, offers a lively narrative, telling the stories of the diverse peoples in the United States. The authors bring history to life by encouraging you to imagine what life was really like in the past. Focus questions and key terms (with definitions, of course) help you concentrate on important information and easily review it as you prep for tests. With MindTap for this text, you get convenient digital access to an eBook with note-taking and other time-saving features and apps. You'll also explore the people, events and places in the United States through interactive activities, videos, images and maps. Enjoy your journey.

Think history is dull? No way, and you're about to find out for yourself. Kamensky/Bailey/Sheriff/Chudacoff/Logevall/Blight's A PEOPLE AND A NATION, VOLUME I: to 1877, 12th Edition, offers a lively narrative, telling the stories of the diverse people in the United States. The authors bring history to life byencouraging you to imagine what life was really like in the past. Focus questions and key terms (with definitions, of course) help you concentrate on important information and easily review it as you prep for tests. With MindTap for this text, you get convenient digital access to an eBook with note-taking and other time-saving features and apps. You'll also explore the people, events and places in the United States through interactive activities, videos, images and maps. Enjoy your journey.

Think history is dull? No way, and you're about to find out for yourself. Kamensky/Bailey/Sheriff/Chudacoff/Logevall/Blight's A PEOPLE AND A NATION, VOLUME II: SINCE 1965, 12th Edition, offers a lively narrative, telling the stories of the diverse people in the United States. The authors bring history to life by encouraging you to imagine what life was really like in the past. Focus questions and key terms (with definitions, of course) help you concentrate on important information and easily review it as you prep for tests. With MindTap for this text, you get convenient digital access to aneBook with note-taking and other time-saving features and apps. You'll also explore the people, events and places in the United States through interactive activities, videos, images and maps. Enjoy your journey.

This spirited narrative challenges students to think about the meaning of American history. Thoughtful inclusion of the lives of everyday people, cultural diversity, work, and popular culture preserves the text's basic approach to American history as a story of all the American people.The Seventh Edition maintains the emphasis on the unique social history of the United States and engages students through cutting-edge research and scholarship. New content includes expanded coverage of modern history (post-1945) with discussion of foreign relations, gender analysis, and race and racial relations.

Sex in the Heartland is the story of the sexual revolution in a small university town in the quintessential heartland state of Kansas. Bypassing the oft-told tales of radicals and revolutionaries on either coast, Beth Bailey argues that the revolution was forged in towns and cities alike, as "ordinary" people struggled over the boundaries of public and private sexual behavior in postwar America. Bailey fundamentally challenges contemporary perceptions of the revolution as simply a triumph of free love and gay lib. Rather, she explores the long-term and mainstream changes in American society, beginning in the economic and social dislocations of World War II and the explosion of mass media and communication, which aided and abetted the sexual upheaval of the 1960s. Focusing on Lawrence, Kansas, we discover the intricacies and depth of a transformation that was nurtured at the grass roots. Americans used the concept of revolution to make sense of social and sexual changes as they lived through them. Everything from the birth control pill and counterculture to Civil Rights, was conflated into "the revolution," an accessible but deceptive simplification, too easy to both glorify and vilify. Bailey untangles the radically different origins, intentions, and outcomes of these events to help us understand their roles and meanings for sex in contemporary America. She argues that the sexual revolution challenged and partially overturned a system of sexual controls based on oppression, inequality, and exploitation, and created new models of sex and gender relations that have shaped our society in powerful and positive ways.

In 1973, not long after the last American combat troops returned from Vietnam, President Nixon fulfilled his campaign promise and ended the draft. No longer would young men find their futures determined by the selective service system; nor would the U.S. military have a guaranteed source of recruits.America’s Army is the story of the all-volunteer force, from the draft protests and policy proposals of the 1960s through the Iraq War. It is also a history of America in the post-Vietnam era. In the Army, America directly confronted the legacies of civil rights and black power, the women’s movement, and gay rights. The volunteer force raised questions about the meaning of citizenship and the rights and obligations it carries; about whether liberty or equality is the more central American value; what role the military should play in American society not only in time of war, but in time of peace. And as the Army tried to create a volunteer force that could respond effectively to complex international situations, it had to compete with other “employers” in a national labor market and sell military service alongside soap and soft drinks. Based on exhaustive archival research, as well as interviews with Army officers and recruiters, advertising executives, and policy makers, America’s Army confronts the political, moral, and social issues a volunteer force raises for a democratic society as well as for the defense of our nation.

Tucked between the activist Sixties and the conservative Eighties lies a largely misunderstood and still under-appreciated decade. Now nine leading scholars of postwar America offer a revealing look at the Seventies and their rightful place in the epic narrative of American history. This is the first major work to relate the economic decline and cultural despair of the Seventies to the creative efforts that would reshape American society. Dogged by economic and political crises at home and foreign policy failures abroad, Americans responded to a growing sense of uncertainty in a variety of ways. Some explored the new freedoms promised by the social change movements of the late Sixties. Some challenged the technological verities that ruled corporate America. Others sought to create autonomous zones in the ruins of decaying cities or on the bleak landscape of anemic suburbia. And, against a backdrop of massive economic dislocation and bicentennial celebrations, many Americans struggled to redefine patriotism and the meaning of the American dream.

In the United States, December 7, 1941, may live in infamy, in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s phrase, but for most Americans the date’s significance begins and ends with the attack on Pearl Harbor. On December 8 (December 7 on the other side of the International Date Line) Japanese military forces hit eight major targets, all but one on western colonial possessions and military outposts in the Pacific: Kota Bharu on the northeast coast of Malaya (now Malaysia); Thailand, the one site not claimed by a western power; Pearl Harbor, O’ahu; Singapore, key to the defense of Britain’s Asian empire; Guam, the only island in the Mariana chain not controlled by Japan; Wake Island; Hong Kong; and the Philippines. Told from multiple perspectives, the stories of these attacks reveal the arc of imperialism, colonialism, and burgeoning nationalism in the Pacific world.In Beyond Pearl Harbor renowned scholars hailing from four continents and representing six nations reinterpret the meaning of the coordinated, and devastating, attacks of December 7/8, 1941. Working from a variety of angles, they revise and expand, to an unprecedented Extent, what we understand about these events—in particular, how Japan’s overwhelming, if short-lived, victories contributed to emerging solidarities and nationalist identities within and across Pacific societies. In their essays we see how various elite actors incorporated the attacks into new regimes of knowledge and expertise that challenged and displaced existing hierarchies. Extending far beyond Pearl Harbor, the events of December 1941, as we see in this volume, are part of a story of clashing empires and anti-colonial visions—a story whose outcome, even now, remains to be seen.

In the United States, December 7, 1941, may live in infamy, in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s phrase, but for most Americans the date’s significance begins and ends with the attack on Pearl Harbor. On December 8 (December 7 on the other side of the International Date Line) Japanese military forces hit eight major targets, all but one on western colonial possessions and military outposts in the Pacific: Kota Bharu on the northeast coast of Malaya (now Malaysia); Thailand, the one site not claimed by a western power; Pearl Harbor, O’ahu; Singapore, key to the defense of Britain’s Asian empire; Guam, the only island in the Mariana chain not controlled by Japan; Wake Island; Hong Kong; and the Philippines. Told from multiple perspectives, the stories of these attacks reveal the arc of imperialism, colonialism, and burgeoning nationalism in the Pacific world.In Beyond Pearl Harbor renowned scholars hailing from four continents and representing six nations reinterpret the meaning of the coordinated, and devastating, attacks of December 7/8, 1941. Working from a variety of angles, they revise and expand, to an unprecedented extent, what we understand about these events—in particular, how Japan’s overwhelming, if short-lived, victories contributed to emerging solidarities and nationalist identities within and across Pacific societies. In their essays we see how various elite actors incorporated the attacks into new regimes of knowledge and expertise that challenged and displaced existing hierarchies. Extending far beyond Pearl Harbor, the events of December 1941, as we see in this volume, are part of a story of clashing empires and anti-colonial visions—a story whose outcome, even now, remains to be seen.

Tucked between the activist Sixties and the conservative Eighties lies a largely misunderstood and still under-appreciated decade. Now nine leading scholars of postwar America offer a revealing look at the Seventies and their rightful place in the epic narrative of American history This is the first major work to relate the economic decline and cultural despair of the Seventies to the creative efforts that would reshape American society. Dogged by economic and political crises at home and foreign policy failures abroad, Americans responded to a growing sense of uncertainty in a variety of ways. Some explored the new freedoms promised by the social change movements of the late Sixties. Some challenged the technological verities that ruled corporate America. Others sought to create autonomous zones in the ruins of decaying cities or on the bleak landscape of anomic suburbia. And, against a backdrop of massive economic dislocation and bicentennial celebrations, many Americans struggled to redefine patriotism and the meaning of the American dream.Focusing on how Americans made sense of their changing world by analyzing such sources as film, popular music, use of public space, advertising campaigns, and patriot rituals, these essays interweave the themes of economic transformation, identity reconfiguration, and cultural uncertainty. The contributors cover such topics as the public''s increasing mistrust of government, the reshaping of working-class identity, and the tensions between the ideological and economic origins of changing gender roles.From existential despair in popular culture to the reactions of youth subcultures, these provocative articles plot the lives of Americans struggling to redefine themselves as their nation moved into an uncertain future. Together they recapture the essence and spirit of that era—for those who lived it and for curious readers who have come of age since then and struggle to understand their own time.

The environmental consequences of the US military presence from World War II through the end of the US war in Vietnam.Oceans and deserts, jungles and plains, mountains and rivers, monsoons and blizzards, fertile grounds and diseased lands; all have shaped how strategy and technology has been deployed and developed, and all have supported unexpected victories and decimated even the best-laid plans. Conversely, warfare and militarization have shaped the environment, scarring landscapes, accelerating the global spread of disease, unbalancing ecosystems, and contributing to climate change.Reflecting on the inextricable, reciprocal, and often surprising relationship between the natural world and human warfare, these essays offer a new perspective on power, knowledge, and the environment in US military history.The history of US military engagement in the Pacific powerfully demonstrates the profound and diverse impacts that regions’ extraordinarily diverse environments have wrought on warfare. US military action has also had profound impacts in the Pacific, from the nuclear weapons testing programs of the Cold War to the use of chemical defoliants in Vietnam. The contributors to this volume consider how the physical environments of the Pacific shaped the process and outcome of battles and wars, and discuss the effect warfare and other military actions had on these physical environments.

This practical, wide-ranging guide to teaching one of the most popular and challenging fields in US history is written by leading scholars who have extensive classroom experience. Organized around key topics and innovative teaching methods, the essays provide concrete, tested approaches, from teaching World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War to using film, wargaming, staff rides, and public-facing projects. The authors also directly address and reflect on some of the pedagogical challenges and controversies of teaching about war. The book bridges traditional military history and 'war and society' approaches to integrate the operational side of military history with broader social, cultural, and political aspects and consequences. Designed for instructors at high school and college level, as well as graduate students preparing to teach, it is an essential resource for anyone seeking to engage students more effectively with a field that remains central to understanding the United States.

This practical, wide-ranging guide to teaching one of the most popular and challenging fields in US history is written by leading scholars who have extensive classroom experience. Organized around key topics and innovative teaching methods, the essays provide concrete, tested approaches, from teaching World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War to using film, wargaming, staff rides, and public-facing projects. The authors also directly address and reflect on some of the pedagogical challenges and controversies of teaching about war. The book bridges traditional military history and 'war and society' approaches to integrate the operational side of military history with broader social, cultural, and political aspects and consequences. Designed for instructors at high school and college level, as well as graduate students preparing to teach, it is an essential resource for anyone seeking to engage students more effectively with a field that remains central to understanding the United States.

By the Tet Offensive in early 1968, what had been widely heralded as the best qualified, best-trained army in US history was descending into crisis as the Vietnam War raged without end. Morale was tanking. AWOL rates were rising. And in August of that year, a group of Black soldiers seized control of the infamous Long Binh Jail, burned buildings, and beat a white inmate to death with a shovel. The days of "same mud, same blood" were over, and by the end of the decade, a new generation of Black GIs had decisively rejected the slights and institutional racism their forefathers had endured. Acclaimed military historian Beth Bailey shows how the Army experienced, defined, and tried to solve racism and racial tension (in its own words, "the problem of race") in the Vietnam War era. Some individuals were sympathetic to the problem but offered solutions that were more performative than transformational, while others proposed remedies that were antithetical to the army's fundamental principles of discipline, order, hierarchy, and authority. Bailey traces a frustrating yet fascinating arc where the army initially rushed to create solutions without taking the time to fully identify the origins, causes, and proliferation of racial tension. It was a difficult, messy process, but only after Army leaders ceased viewing the issue as a Black issue and accepted their own roles in contributing to the problem did change become possible.

By the late 1960s, what had been widely heralded as the best qualified, best-trained army in US history was descending into crisis as the Vietnam War raged without end. Morale was tanking. AWOL rates were rising. And in August 1968, a group of Black soldiers seized control of the infamous Long Binh Jail, burned buildings, and beat a white inmate to death with a shovel. The days of “same mud, same blood” were over, and a new generation of Black GIs had decisively rejected the slights and institutional racism their forefathers had endured.As Black and white soldiers fought in barracks and bars, with violence spilling into surrounding towns within the US and in West Germany, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan, army leaders grew convinced that the growing racial crisis undermined the army’s ability to defend the nation. Acclaimed military historian Beth Bailey shows how the US Army tried to solve that racial crisis (in army terms, “the problem of race”). Army leaders were surprisingly creative in confronting demands for racial justice, even willing to challenge fundamental army principles of discipline, order, hierarchy, and authority. Bailey traces a frustrating yet fascinating story, as a massive, conservative institution came to terms with demands for change.

Just as World War I introduced Americans to Europe, making an indelible impression on thousands of farmboys who were changed forever “after they saw Paree,” so World War II was the beginning of America’s encounter with the East – an encounter whose effects are still being felt and absorbed. No single place was more symbolic of this initial encounter than Hawaii, the target of the first unforgettable Japanese attack on American forces, and, as the forward base and staging area for all military operations in the Pacific, the “first strange place” for close to a million soldiers, sailors, and marines on their way to the horrors of war. But as Beth Bailey and David Farber show in this evocative and timely book, Hawaii was also the first strange place on another kind of journey, toward the new American society that began to emerge in the postwar era. Unlike the largely rigid and static social order of prewar America, this was to be a highly mobile and volatile society of mixed racial and cultural influences, one above all in which women and minorities would increasingly demand and receive equal status. With consummate skill and sensitivity, Bailey and Farber show how these unprecedented changes were tested and explored in the highly charged environment of wartime Hawaii. Most of the hundreds of thousands of men and women whom war brought to Hawaii were expecting a Hollywood image of “paradise.” What they found instead was vastly different: a complex crucible in which radically diverse elements – social, racial, sexual – were mingled and transmuted in the heat and strain of war. Drawing on the rich and largely untapped reservoir of documents, diaries, memoirs, and interviews with men and women who were there, the authors vividly recreate the dense, lush, atmosphere of wartime Hawaii – an atmosphere that combined the familiar and exotic in a mixture that prefigured the special strangeness of American society today.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2016Investigates the causes, conduct, and consequences of the recent American wars in Iraq and AfghanistanUnderstanding the United States' wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is essential to understanding the United States in the first decade of the new millennium and beyond. These wars were pivotal to American foreign policy and international relations. They were expensive: in lives, in treasure, and in reputation. They raised critical ethical and legal questions; they provoked debates over policy, strategy, and war-planning; they helped to shape American domestic politics. And they highlighted a profound division among the American people: While more than two million Americans served in Iraq and Afghanistan, many in multiple deployments, the vast majority of Americans and their families remained untouched by and frequently barely aware of the wars conducted in their name, far from American shores, in regions about which they know little. Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan gives us the first book-length expert historical analysis of these wars. It shows us how they began, what they teach us about the limits of the American military and diplomacy, and who fought them. It examines the lessons and legacies of wars whose outcomes may not be clear for decades. In 1945 few Americans could imagine that the country would be locked in a Cold War with the Soviet Union for decades; fewer could imagine how history would paint the era. Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan begins to come to grips with the period when America became enmeshed in a succession of "low intensity" conflicts in the Middle East.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2016Investigates the causes, conduct, and consequences of the recent American wars in Iraq and AfghanistanUnderstanding the United States' wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is essential to understanding the United States in the first decade of the new millennium and beyond. These wars were pivotal to American foreign policy and international relations. They were expensive: in lives, in treasure, and in reputation. They raised critical ethical and legal questions; they provoked debates over policy, strategy, and war-planning; they helped to shape American domestic politics. And they highlighted a profound division among the American people: While more than two million Americans served in Iraq and Afghanistan, many in multiple deployments, the vast majority of Americans and their families remained untouched by and frequently barely aware of the wars conducted in their name, far from American shores, in regions about which they know little. Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan gives us the first book-length expert historical analysis of these wars. It shows us how they began, what they teach us about the limits of the American military and diplomacy, and who fought them. It examines the lessons and legacies of wars whose outcomes may not be clear for decades. In 1945 few Americans could imagine that the country would be locked in a Cold War with the Soviet Union for decades; fewer could imagine how history would paint the era. Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan begins to come to grips with the period when America became enmeshed in a succession of "low intensity" conflicts in the Middle East.

The U.S. military is a massive institution, and its policies on sex, gender, and sexuality have shaped the experiences of tens of millions of Americans, sometimes in life-altering fashion. The essays in Managing Sex in the U.S. Military examine historical and contemporary military policies and offer different perspectives on the broad question: “How does the U.S. military attempt to manage sex?” This collection focuses on the U.S. military’s historical and contemporary attempts to manage sex-a term that is, in practice, slippery and indefinite, encompassing gender and gender identity, sexuality and sexual orientation, and sexual behaviors and practices, along with their outcomes. In each chapter, the authors analyze the military’s evolving definitions of sex, sexuality, and gender, and the significance of those definitions to both the military and American society.

The U.S. military is a massive institution, and its policies on sex, gender, and sexuality have shaped the experiences of tens of millions of Americans, sometimes in life-altering fashion. The essays in Managing Sex in the U.S. Military examine historical and contemporary military policies and offer different perspectives on the broad question: “How does the U.S. military attempt to manage sex?” This collection focuses on the U.S. military’s historical and contemporary attempts to manage sex-a term that is, in practice, slippery and indefinite, encompassing gender and gender identity, sexuality and sexual orientation, and sexual behaviors and practices, along with their outcomes. In each chapter, the authors analyze the military’s evolving definitions of sex, sexuality, and gender, and the significance of those definitions to both the military and American society.

The US Army and Social Change offers historical context for ongoing, contemporary debates over the proper relationship of the US military to social change and social issues. Contributors look beyond the debate over whether the Army should be a site of social experimentation to argue that it always has and likely always will be. Examining specific cases from the twentieth century, the essays in The US Army and Social Change analyze army responses to critical questions about who should serve, what roles individuals and groups should play, and what rights each deserves—always in the context of the US Army's mission of national defense.

By the late 1960s, what had been widely heralded as the best qualified, best-trained army in US history was descending into crisis as the Vietnam War raged without end. Morale was tanking. AWOL rates were rising. And in August 1968, a group of Black soldiers seized control of the infamous Long Binh Jail, burned buildings, and beat a white inmate to death with a shovel. The days of “same mud, same blood” were over, and a new generation of Black GIs had decisively rejected the slights and institutional racism their forefathers had endured.As Black and white soldiers fought in barracks and bars, with violence spilling into surrounding towns within the US and in West Germany, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan, army leaders grew convinced that the growing racial crisis undermined the army’s ability to defend the nation. Acclaimed military historian Beth Bailey shows how the US Army tried to solve that racial crisis (in army terms, “the problem of race”). Army leaders were surprisingly creative in confronting demands for racial justice, even willing to challenge fundamental army principles of discipline, order, hierarchy, and authority. Bailey traces a frustrating yet fascinating story, as a massive, conservative institution came to terms with demands for change.

By the late 1960s, what had been widely heralded as the best qualified, best-trained army in US history was descending into crisis as the Vietnam War raged without end. Morale was tanking. AWOL rates were rising. And in August 1968, a group of Black soldiers seized control of the infamous Long Binh Jail, burned buildings, and beat a white inmate to death with a shovel. The days of “same mud, same blood” were over, and a new generation of Black GIs had decisively rejected the slights and institutional racism their forefathers had endured.As Black and white soldiers fought in barracks and bars, with violence spilling into surrounding towns within the US and in West Germany, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan, army leaders grew convinced that the growing racial crisis undermined the army’s ability to defend the nation. Acclaimed military historian Beth Bailey shows how the US Army tried to solve that racial crisis (in army terms, “the problem of race”). Army leaders were surprisingly creative in confronting demands for racial justice, even willing to challenge fundamental army principles of discipline, order, hierarchy, and authority. Bailey traces a frustrating yet fascinating story, as a massive, conservative institution came to terms with demands for change.