Howard Bruce Franklin

Looks at the legacy of the Vietnam War, including the conflict, its long-term effects, and the mythology of warfare in America.

Vietnam and Other American Fantasies

Gathers over sixty selections written while incarcerated by such authors as Malcolm X, Assata Shakur, Jim Etheridge, Edward Bunker, Nathan Heard, Jim Tully, and Kim Wozencraft

Prison Writing in 20th-century America

In this groundbreaking cultural analysis of the superweapon in American society, H. Bruce Franklin explores a pattern of thought that has beguiled Americans since the 18th century: the belief that miraculous new weapons will somehow end war and bring global triumph to American ideals. Franklin begins his analysis with Robert Fulton, who claimed that an Age of Reason--including an end to ignorance, poverty, and war--would be ushered in by his three "defensive" inventions: the submarine, the torpedo, and the steam warship. He then traces this seductive idea as it weaves through American cultural artifacts, such as the flood of "future war" novels appearing between 1880 and World War I, the animated Disney feature "Victory Through Air Power", and a 1940 novel in which America uses atomic bombs to win World War II and establish a Pax Americana along the lines of the 1946 Baruch Plan. In all, Franklin explores over two hundred movies, stories, and novels, rediscovering obscure works that directly influenced later decision-making and brilliantly reinterpreting such modern classics as Catch 22, Slaughterhouse Five, and Dr. Strangelove. More important, he shows how these cultural images shaped the imagination and public discourse responsible for the actual superweapons now looming over human destiny.

The Superweapon and the American Imagination

War Stars

American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century

Future Perfect

A work of serious scholarship that contains both fiction and criticism.

A history of prison literature in the U.S. examines the works of those who became writers by virtue of their being defined and treated as criminals

The Victim as Criminal and Artist

Prison Literature in America

Critics, science fiction writers, scientists, and scholars throughout the world hailed the original publication of Future Perfect in 1966 as a book that would transform our evaluation of science fiction and our understanding of American culture. The praise has proved well founded, for Future Perfect has been more responsible than any other single work for the recognition of the value and significance of science fiction.

American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century: An Anthology

Marilyn Blatt Young

Marvin E. Gettleman

Jane Franklin

No single event since World War II has marked this country’s foreign policy and national image as deeply as did the war in Vietnam. Vietnam and America is a complete history of the war, as documented in essays by leading experts and in original source material. With generous selections from the documentary records, the book dispels distortions and illuminates in depth the many facets of the war, from Vietnam’s history before the war, to Washington’s insider policy making, to troop perspectives, to the impact back on the home front. In essays introducing each major stage of the war, the editors elucidate the issues, foreign policy choices, and consequences of U.S. involvement. Substantial headnotes put each document in historical perspective. This comprehensive anthology is an invaluable reference for anyone who wants to understand the Vietnam War.

A Documented History

Vietnam and America

Explores why the belief in the existence of live POWs in Southeast Asia has exercised a profound influence on American life

Howard Bruce Franklin

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