By the 1970s, World War II had all but disappeared from US popular culture, but in the mid-eighties it returned with a vengeance. Today, remembrance of World War II is ubiquitous across US media and politics, demonstrating its centrality to American collective identity. In this book, Barbara Biesecker explores this shift, revealing how -The Good War- was retooled to restore social equilibrium to the US. Drawing on methods of contemporary philosophy, Biesecker analyzes prominent cases of World War II remembrance, including the canceled exhibit of the Enola Gay at the National Air and Space Museum in 1995, the film Saving Private Ryan, and Tom Brokaw-s best-selling book The Greatest Generation. Situating these texts within the culture wars and the broader framework of American politics and international relations, Biesecker argues that the return of the Good War to public memory was an effect of the fall of the Soviet Union. Once America-s Other was gone, a new narrative was needed to ma
