Why We Fight: Versions of the American Purpose in World War II (Propag and a, Roosevelt, Pyle).

Abstract

The dissertation represents an attempt to show how Americans, who had been counseled for twenty years to abhor war and to distrust idealistic international crusades, created various interpretations suitable to the war in which they found themselves in 1941. All agreed that the war was worth fighting, but there was disagreement about why it was worth fighting. Several individuals and groups, each responsible for a prominent or distinctive conception of the war effort, are treated. Four chapters deal with the positions that emerged in response to these questions: To what extent was the United States fighting for some purpose beyond self-defense? Was military victory over Germany and Japan a sufficient aim? Or must the war also be used to bring about constructive change in the world, and if so, what kind of change? President Franklin D. Roosevelt argued with typical flexibility that the war was not defensive and more than defensive. A group of liberal publicists proposed an uncompromisingly progressive interpretation; their failure to gain a wide public following is illustrated by a study of the Office of War Information's domestic propag and a. Frank Capra's Why We Fight film series is examined as a representative of defensive underst and ings of the war. Three chapters examine interpretations of the national purpose that diverged from the idealistic-defensive debate. Large corporations and the advertising agencies that served them advanced the proposition that the war was being fought by and for capitalism. The writings of the war correspondent Ernie Pyle are explored for their subtle implications about the war's character. A final chapter suggests that Americans derived meaning from the war, perhaps most of all, simply by fighting and winning it. The study suggests that American interpretations of the war effort exerted a powerful influence on the ideology of the Cold War. It suggests, too, that World War II provided an opportunity for reassessing the national character. In the wake of the Great Depression, the war restored the nation's self-confidence, even encouraged an inflated national pride that equated victory with virtue.