American samurai: myth, imagination, and the conduct of battle in the First Marine Division, 1941-1951

Events on the battlefields of the Pacific War were not only outgrowths of technology and tactics, but also products of cultural myth and imagination. American Samurai offers a bold and innovative approach to military history by linking combat activity to cultural images. Marines projected ideas and assumptions about themselves and their enemy onto people and events throughout the war--giving life to formerly abstract myths and ideas and molding their behavior to expectations. This fascinating book concludes by considering what happened to the myths and images and how they have been preserved in American society to the present.