Writing wars: authorship and American war fiction, WWI to present

Introduction

"Stick to Her Farms and Farmer Folk": World War I and the Origins of Combat Gnosticism

"Tell It Like It Was": World War II and the Institutional Curation of Memory

"You Had to Be There": Vietnam and the Veteran's Consolidation of Authority

"You Don't Have to Be a Veteran": The All-Volunteer Force and the Dispersion of Authority

"The New Battle": The Civil-Military Gap and the Shock of Coming Home

"The Other Side of COIN": Counterinsurgency and the Ethics of Memory

"You Volunteered to Get Screwed": Public Trust and the Literary Representation of the Professional Military

Appendix: The American Novels of Iraq and Afghanistan through 2020.