Curating and Re-Curating the American Wars in Vietnam and Iraq

We have long saved--and curated--objects from wars to commemorate the war experience. These objects appear at national museums and memorials and in war novels and memoirs. Through them we institutionalize narratives and memories of national identity, power and purpose. This book asks whose vantage points on the American wars in Vietnam and Iraq are available, and where, for public consumption; it also considers whose war experiences are not represented, are minimized, or ignored in ways that advantage contemporary militarism. In looking at how professional curators, ordinary civilian "curators," and veteran and civilian writers exhibit the American wars in Vietnam and Iraq, Sylvester shows that war authority is widely dispersed and nonconsenual. By looking beyond official renditions of a war, scholars, policymakers, and other citizens are able to grasp war as a violent, rather than abstractly heroic, mode of politics.