Why read Warrior Dreams?

Book cover of Warrior Dreams: Paramilitary Culture in Post-Vietnam America

Book description

Argues that America's defeat in Vietnam and challenges to the status quo have created a crisis in American identity, and have given birth to a reactionary new war culture

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Why read it?

1 author picked Warrior Dreams as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

D.J. Mulloy

Author

I first read this book as a student in the 1990s, and it has always stayed with me, becoming more and more relevant as time has gone by.

Covering films like Rambo: First Blood Part II, Red Dawn, and Top Gun, magazines such as Soldier of Fortune, weekend paintballers, the NRA, and the foreign policy (mis)adventures of the Reagan and Bush administrations, alongside the activities of various white supremacists, Gibson’s book is a wholly enlightening account of the ongoing appeal of guns, violence, paramilitarism, and what we would now call “toxic masculinity” in American life.

From D.J.'s list on The best books for understanding the history of white supremacy in the United States.