American Samurai: Myth and Imagination in the Conduct of Battle in the First Marine Division 1941-1951

This volume offers an innovative approach to military history by linking battlefield dynamics of the Pacific War to cultural, social, and institutional myth among marines of the First Division and drawing on a broad range of approaches to its subject. The book begins with a look at the legacy of the Marine Corps on the eve of Pearl Harbor, and then turns to gender studies to shed light on the methods of "making" marines. At the heart of the book are close examinations of how three broad categories of myth and imagination directly affected the First Division's campaigns on Guadalcanal, Peleiu, and Okinawa. The study concludes by considering what happened to the myths and images of the Pacific War in the Korean War, and how they have been preserved in American society up to the present.