In
The Pentagon's Battle for the American Mind, Lori Bogle traces the history of the Pentagon from the Progressive Era to the early years of the Cold War. An associate professor of history at the U.S. Naval Academy, she spends much of her time researching the social and cultural aspects of American military history. The book was published in 2004 and has received several fine reviews.
More importantly, it is a military historian's take on the powerful mission of the Pentagon to persuade, convert and dominate the American psyche. What's extraordinary about the book for me is the willingness to decode the American military's rhetorical appeals and expose them. My opinion - the end is near for right-wingism.
Here are some brief excerpts from the book:
Military religion, the most powerful variant of American civil religion, is the belief that the military, as the defender of the "American Way of Life," is a holy instrument of God's will and the interpreter of national values. Converting the War for Independence into a religious epic, military religion claims that no sacrifice, material or physical, is too great a price to pay for the cause of liberty.
It is hard to imagine a more successful - and profitable - campaign for the hearts and minds of Americans than the military establishment's.
By manipulating the precepts of this variation of religious nationalism, the armed forces not only gained public support for increased appropriations and manpower ceilings, a constant struggle for a military in a democracy, but at times even a justified extending its conformist citizenship education to the public as well. Under such a concept, each branch of service could be considered a unique expression or "denomination" of the American Way of Life, separated by mission (land, sea, and air), but sharing a common set of rituals (rituals of induction and basic training), sacred symbols (the American flag), moral code (the Uniform Code of Military Justice and Code of Conduct), and priests (military chaplains).
Another but equally critical read to join with this book is Thomas Barnett's The Pentagon's New Map, which was highlighted on CSPAN recently along with authorial commentary. Read together, these two books represent fascinating cross-currents in military academe.