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Divisions: A New History of Racism and Resistance in America's World War II Military Kindle Edition

4.4 out of 5 stars 10

The first comprehensive narrative of racism in America's World War II military and the resistance to it.

America's World War II military was a force of unalloyed good. While saving the world from Nazism, it also managed to unify a famously fractious American people. At least that's the story many Americans have long told themselves.

Divisions offers a decidedly different view. Prizewinning historian Thomas A. Guglielmo draws together more than a decade of extensive research to tell sweeping yet personal stories of race and the military; of high command and ordinary GIs; and of African Americans, white Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. Guglielmo argues that the military built not one color line, but a complex tangle of them. Taken together, they represented a sprawling structure of white supremacy. Freedom struggles arose in response, democratizing portions of the wartime military and setting the stage for postwar desegregation and the subsequent civil rights movements. But the costs of the military's color lines were devastating. They impeded America's war effort; undermined the nation's rhetoric of the Four Freedoms; further naturalized the concept of race; deepened many whites' investments in white supremacy; and further fractured the American people.

Offering a dramatic narrative of America's World War II military and of the postwar world it helped to fashion, Guglielmo fundamentally reshapes our understanding of the war and of mid-twentieth-century America.
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From the Publisher

Divisions: A New History of Racism and Resistance in America's World War II Military
Divisions: A New History of Racism and Resistance in America's World War II Military

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Ambitiously conceived, exhaustively researched, and lucidly written,Divisions sheds fresh and often harsh light on the ways that America waged World War II. Thomas Guglielmo's richly granular account of the segregated armed forces that fought the sometimes not-so-'Good War' is a landmark contribution to the history of the war, as well as the vexedly complex history of race relations in modern America." - David M. Kennedy, author of Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945

"Written in a captivating manner, Divisions tells the story about the multiple, complex, sometimes contradictory color lines the military deployed during World War II. Backed by a wealth of data and sprinkled with delicious, unforgettable details, Divisions deserves scholarly and popular attention." - Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, author of Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States

"Thoughtful and nuanced, Divisions supplies a counter perspective to the wistful, largely fictional pop culture invocation of the World War II-era military as a fraternity of the forces for good or a crucible of civic nationalism. Despite the wealth of work on World War II there are not enough books that move beyond vindicationist histories of Black soldiers at war. There are even fewer that place the experiences of Black Americans alongside or in dialogue with those of Japanese Americans and other non-white (or less) white Americans. And there are fewer still that talk about racism and the resistance to it without reifying racial categories. Divisions is compelling, clear, and moving." - Adriane Lentz-Smith, Duke University

"Guglielmo's great skill as a historian is his ability to lay out the complexity and nuance involved in the military's recreation of myriad color lines and acts of resistance against them. Important, timely, and masterful, Divisions gives much food for thought not only about the historical antecedents for today's intensifying racial tensions but also about the immense challenges African Americans and other people of color will continue to face in any broad-based campaign for racial justice and equitable citizenship." - David Gutierrez, University of California, San Diego

About the Author


Thomas A. Guglielmo is Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of American Studies at George Washington University. He is the author of White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890-1940 (OUP, 2003), which won the Frederick Jackson Turner Award of the Organization of American Historians.
--This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09DQCP5NQ
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press (September 3, 2021)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 3, 2021
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 26755 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 525 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0195342658
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 10

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Thomas A. Guglielmo
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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
10 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2022
This well-researched but very readable book explains how the American military treated certain "ethnic" minorities in World War II, especially Blacks but also other "non-Blacks": Japanese-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, etc. It is divided into four sections that deal with Enlistment, Assignment (determining who belonged in what category) and Classification, Training - no, not all soldiers were trained alike, especially if you were Black - and finally Fighting: who got to fight and who had to supply those who were allowed to fight.

By the time you finish this book, you understand why many of the Black GIs who stayed in the South after they returned stateside - and half of them did not - were among the early activists for Civil Rights.

I"ll be honest: since my research concerns, in part, Blacks in World War II, I skipped the sections that dealt with non-Blacks. If they are as well researched and written as those dealing with Black GIs, then this is one uniformly impressive, often saddening, but very useful tome.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2022
Recommended for its insights into a story never fully told about race in WW II.
One person found this helpful
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