What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France by Mary Louise

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How do you convince men to charge across heavily mined beaches into deadly machine-gun fire? The author tells the troubling story of how the US military command systematically spread - and then exploited - the myth of French women as sexually experienced and available. The resulting chaos horrified the war-weary and demoralized French population.

FORMATHardcover LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Publisher Description

How do you convince men to charge across heavily mined beaches into deadly machine-gun fire? Do you appeal to their bonds with their fellow soldiers, their patriotism, their desire to end tyranny and mass murder? Certainly—but if you're the US Army in 1944, you also try another tack: you dangle the lure of beautiful French women, waiting just on the other side of the wire, ready to reward their liberators in oh so many ways.That's not the picture of the Greatest Generation that we've been given, but it's the one Mary Louise Roberts paints to devastating effect in What Soldiers Do. Drawing on an incredible range of sources, including news reports, propaganda and training materials, official planning documents, wartime diaries, and memoirs, Roberts tells the fascinating and troubling story of how the US military command systematically spread—and then exploited—the myth of French women as sexually experienced and available. The resulting chaos—ranging from flagrant public sex with prostitutes to outright rape and rampant venereal disease—horrified the war-weary and demoralized French population. The sexual predation, and the blithe response of the American military leadership, also caused serious friction between the two nations just as they were attempting to settle questions of long-term control over the liberated territories and the restoration of French sovereignty. While never denying the achievement of D-Day, or the bravery of the soldiers who took part, What Soldiers Do reminds us that history is always more useful—and more interesting—when it is most honest, and when it goes beyond the burnished beauty of nostalgia to grapple with the real lives and real mistakes of the people who lived it.

Author Biography

Mary Louise Roberts is professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of Disruptive Acts: The New Woman in Fin-de-Siecle France and Civilization without Sexes: Reconstructing Gender in Postwar France, 1917-1927.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction Part One: Romance Chapter One: Soldier, Liberator, Tourist Chapter Two: The Myth of the Manly GI Chapter Three: Masters in Their House Part Two: Prostitution Chapter Four: Amerilots and Harlots Chapter Five: The Silver Foxhole Chapter Six: Dangerous Indiscretions Part Three: Rape Chapter Seven: The Innocent Suffer Chapter Eight: Black Terror on the Bocage Conclusion: Two Victory Days Notes Index

Review

"In this vivid account of Gls in wartime France, Mary Louise Roberts documents how the Greatest Generation was sometimes as badly behaved beyond the battlefield as it was brave in combat. What Soldiers Do is not a conventional history. It deeply-and often colorfully-textures our understanding of the experiences of men at war, the contours of mid-twentieth-century sexual (and racial) mores, and the frequently ignorant and even lurid attitudes toward other peoples that attended America's ascent to global hegemony." -David M. Kennedy, author of Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War"

Review Quote

"Throughout this book the links between sex, the body, national and transnational politics are made plain. While some readers may query the argument that the behaviour of GIs can be conceptualised as the "growing pains" of a nation moving into world leadership, many will appreciate this nuanced history of sex, war and power. The sexual behaviour of an army, and the sexual abuse it propagates, are to do with more than the personal choices of select individuals. Looking beyond "a few bad hats", as British Army officers are wont to say of abusers, is instructive, not just for a deeper understanding of the complex liberation of France but also of the broader links between military power, sexual dominance and gender relations."

Details ISBN0226923096 Author Mary Louise Roberts Language English ISBN-10 0226923096 ISBN-13 9780226923093 Media Book Format Hardcover Residence US Short Title WHAT SOLDIERS DO Year 2013 Imprint University of Chicago Press Subtitle Sex and the American GI in World War II France Place of Publication Chicago, IL Country of Publication United States Illustrations 23 halftones UK Release Date 2013-05-17 Publication Date 2013-05-17 NZ Release Date 2013-05-17 US Release Date 2013-05-17 Pages 368 Publisher The University of Chicago Press DEWEY 940.548373 Audience Professional & Vocational AU Release Date 2013-05-16 Series Emersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith We've got this

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