The End of the Victory Culture - Hardcover

"Engelhardt is absorbing and provocative. . . . Everything he writes is of a satisfyingly congruent piece."

"An extraordinarily original work that places postwar American history in an entirely new perspective." -- John Dower

"In this tour de force, Tom Engelhardt tracks the American 'war story' along its declining arc. . . . Full of brilliancies, this is one of those rare books that can change the way we see." -- Todd Gitlin

"A brilliant meditation on the past half-century of the American national story. . . . Its account of the disintegration of a confident post-World War II national identity is a stunning achievement." -- Marilyn Young

"America Victorious has been our country's postulate since its birth. Tom Engelhardt, with a burning clarity, recounts the end of this fantasy, from the split atom to Vietnam. . . . As powerful as a Joe Louis jab to the solar plexus." -- Studs Terkel

"Sets out to trace the vicissitudes of America's self-image since World War II as they showed up in popular culture: war toys, war comics, war reporting, and war films. It succeeds brilliantly. . . . Engelhardt's prose is smart and smooth, and his book is social and cultural history of a high order."

The End of Victory Culture is an autopsy of a once vital American myth: the cherished belief that triumph over a less-than-human enemy was in the American grain, a birthright and a national destiny. This book is a compelling account of how a national narrative of triumph through which Americans bad always sustained themselves as a people underwent a vertiginous decomposition from Hiroshima to Vietnam.