Dear PSNers:

I very much liked Bill Gibson's scholarly and critical book on Vietnam, The 
Perfect War. Now he has just published another on our culture of violence. I 
recommend it highly. Here is a review I asked him to write for us. 

John Horton
Department of Sociology
University of California
Los Angeles, CA 90024

NEW BOOK ON MALE IDENTITY AND AMERICA'S CULTURE OF VIOLENCE
by                                        

James William Gibson          
Dept. of Sociology
Cal. State U. Long Beach
1250 Bellflower Blvd.
Long Beach, Ca. 90840
(310) 985-4606


WARRIOR DREAMS: Paramilitary Culture in Post-Vietnam America (New York: Hill
and Wang, 1994) 357 pp. $23.00. Paperback available in fall, 1994.

Hello members of the Progressive Sociology Network. This is Bill Gibson 
writing to tell you a little bit about my new book, Warrior Dreams.

Warrior Dreams begins where my first book, The Perfect War: Technowar 
in Vietnam (Atlantic Monthly, 1986: Vintage Paperback, 1988) left off. That 
book analyzed how the U.S. military conceptualized and fought the Vietnam War 
and why we lost.

While researching PW, I read dozens of novels and memoirs by Vietnam 
veterans.  Almost all of the stories told of how influential WW II movies had 
been on male adolescents. Going to war was clearly interpreted as the ritual 
transition to manhood.

Consequently, when the action-adventure movies, pulp novels, and 
paramilitary magazines like Soldier of Fortune started to appear in the late 
1970s and early 1980s, I took this new paramilitary culture seriously. It 
offered men a fantasy identity as powerful warriors who would heal the wounds 
of defeat in Vietnam, put women back in their places, stop the flow of 
immigrants, and fight all kinds of criminal forces.

The book has three sections. The first section, "Stories From the New War," 
explores the mythology of war and the warrior created in the 1980s. I 
interviewed quite a few directors and producers of Hollywood war films, as 
well as noveland magazines editors. I also collected and analyzed the films, 
novels, and magazines these men created and found that they contain a handful 
of basic myths or fundamental narratives.

The second section, "Better Than Disneyland," is about the growth of 
paramilitary theme parks and playgrounds where men can play around the edges 
of real violence. This section has three chapters based on my first-hand 
experiences playing paintball, attending SOF conventions, and going to a 
combat pistol training school. At this school, half the students were 
civilians while the other half were from  the U.S. Marine Corps, the 
Department of Energy, the Drug Enforc ement Administration, and various state 
and local police agencies.

The third section, "War Zone America," explores how this warrior mythology 
influenced actions in the "real" world by mercenaries, hit-men, racist 
groups, mass murderers, and both sides of the gun control debate, and the 
Bush and Reagan administrations.

Warrior Dreams was written as what in the publishing industry is called 
a "cro ss-over" trade book, meaning that it's a serious intellectual work, 
but also that it's accessible to the literate public. The literate public 
includes upper -division undergraduates and graduate students.

Copies of Warrior Dreams have already gone out to newspapers, magazines, 
and s ome academic journals. If you're interested in reviewing the book, have 
the publication with whom you are affiliated request a review copy from Ms. 
Ida Veltri, Director of Publicity, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 19 Union Square 
West, New Y ork, New York 10003. Ms. Veltri's number is 212-206-5323. Her FAX 
is 212-741-6973.

People who want to consider WD for classroom adoption should send $3.00 
for an examination copy to Hill and Wang, Academic Marketing, 19 Union Square 
West, New York, New York 10003. Or call 212-742-6900; or FAX 212-741-6973.

Sincerely,


James William Gibson
Associate Professor of Sociology