Carruthers acknowledges that her impressive, data-driven new book about the experience of American soldiers during occupation after World War II testifies to a renewed interest in the subject. The demarcation between war and peace is rarely clear. All wars have far-reaching societal consequences, affecting the psychologies of both the defeated and, as we learn from Carruthers, the victorious. This point is no more evident today than in Iraq, which she uses as a foil for discussing “successful” military occupations (10). Success, she points out, is not easily measured. This book therefore aims to show how the morally ambiguous behavior of American soldiers during occupation transformed into the “good occupation” of national legend (10).
Despite her overarching focus on the construction of the myth surrounding American occupation, Carruther’s exposé of the soldiers’ psychological repercussions may well be the book’s most important contribution. She explores not only the collective forgetfulness about the...