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| fighting for american manhood: Fighting for American Manhood Kristin L. Hoganson, 1998-01-01 This groundbreaking book blends international relations and gender history to provide a new understanding of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars. Kristin L. Hoganson shows how gendered ideas about citizenship and political leadership influenced jingoist political leaders` desire to wage these conflicts, and she traces how they manipulated ideas about gender to embroil the nation in war. She argues that racial beliefs were only part of the cultural framework that undergirded U.S. martial policies at the turn of the century. Gender beliefs, also affected the rise and fall of the nation`s imperialist impulse. Drawing on an extensive range of sources, including congressional debates, campaign speeches, political tracts, newspapers, magazines, political cartoons, and the papers of politicians, soldiers, suffragists, and other political activists, Hoganson discusses how concerns about manhood affected debates over war and empire. She demonstrates that jingoist political leaders, distressed by the passing of the Civil War generation and by women`s incursions into electoral politics, embraced war as an opportunity to promote a political vision in which soldiers were venerated as model citizens and women remained on the fringes of political life. These gender concerns not only played an important role in the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars, they have echoes in later time periods, says the author, and recognizing their significance has powerful ramifications for the way we view international relations. Yale Historical Publications |
| fighting for american manhood: Fight Sports and American Masculinity Christopher David Thrasher, 2015-07-02 Throughout America's past, some men have feared the descent of their gender into effeminacy, and turned their eyes to the ring in hopes of salvation. This work explains how the dominant fight sports in the United States have changed over time in response to broad shifts in American culture and ideals of manhood, and presents a narrative of American history as seen from the bars, gyms, stadiums and living rooms of the heartland. Ordinary Americans were the agents who supported and participated in fight sports and determined its vision of masculinity. This work counters the economic determinism prevalent in studies of American fight sports, which overemphasize profit as the driving force in the popularization of these sports. The author also disputes previous scholarship's domestic focus, with an appreciation of how American fight sports are connected to the rest of the world. |
| fighting for american manhood: Masculindians Sam McKegney, 2014-02-07 What does it mean to be an Indigenous man today? Between October 2010 and May 2013, Sam McKegney conducted interviews with leading Indigenous artists, critics, activists, and elders on the subject of Indigenous manhood. In offices, kitchens, and coffee shops, and once in a car driving down the 401, McKegney and his participants tackled crucial questions about masculine self-worth and how to foster balanced and empowered gender relations. Masculindians captures twenty of these conversations in a volume that is intensely personal, yet speaks across generations, geography, and gender boundaries. As varied as their speakers, the discussions range from culture, history, and world view to gender theory, artistic representations, and activist interventions. They speak of possibility and strength, of beauty and vulnerability. They speak of sensuality, eroticism, and warriorhood, and of the corrosive influence of shame, racism, and violence. Firmly grounding Indigenous continuance in sacred landscapes, interpersonal reciprocity, and relations with other-than-human kin, these conversations honour and embolden the generative potential of healthy Indigenous masculinities. |
| fighting for american manhood: Consumers' Imperium Kristin L. Hoganson, 2010-03-15 Histories of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era tend to characterize the United States as an expansionist nation bent on Americanizing the world without being transformed itself. In Consumers' Imperium, Kristin Hoganson reveals the other half of the story, demonstrating that the years between the Civil War and World War I were marked by heightened consumption of imports and strenuous efforts to appear cosmopolitan. Hoganson finds evidence of international connections in quintessentially domestic places--American households. She shows that well-to-do white women in this era expressed intense interest in other cultures through imported household objects, fashion, cooking, entertaining, armchair travel clubs, and the immigrant gifts movement. From curtains to clothing, from around-the-world parties to arts and crafts of the homelands exhibits, Hoganson presents a new perspective on the United States in the world by shifting attention from exports to imports, from production to consumption, and from men to women. She makes it clear that globalization did not just happen beyond America's shores, as a result of American military might and industrial power, but that it happened at home, thanks to imports, immigrants, geographical knowledge, and consumer preferences. Here is an international history that begins at home. |
| fighting for american manhood: Subduing Satan Ted Ownby, 2014-02-01 The Praying South and the Fighting South are two of our most popular images of white southern culture. In Subduing Satan, Ted Ownby details the tensions between these complex--and often opposing--attitudes. Ownby's re-creation of male recreation is rich and fascinating. He paints the saloon and the street, the cockfighting and dogfighting rings as realms of distinctly male vices, enjoyed lustily by men seeking to escape the sweet virtue of the Southern Christian home.--Nation A bold new thesis. . . . [Ownby] gives us guideposts in the ongoing search for the meaning of southern history.--Journal of Southern History I suspect that for many years ahead Ted Ownby's Subduing Satan will serve as the standard guide on how to write religious social history.--Bertram Wyatt-Brown, University of Florida This is one of the freshest and most interesting books written about the American South in years. By focusing on the cultural conflicts of everyday life, Ownby gets us right to the heart of white culture in the South between Reconstruction and the 1920s.--Edward L. Ayers, University of Virginia |
| fighting for american manhood: Manhood and American Political Culture in the Cold War K.A. Cuordileone, 2012-11-12 Manhood and American Political Culture in the Cold War explores the meaning of anxiety as expressed through the political and cultural language of the early cold war era. Cuordileone shows how the preoccupation with the soft, malleable American character reflected not only anti-Communism but acute anxieties about manhood and sexuality. Reading major figures like Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Adlai Stevenson, Joseph McCarthy, Norman Mailer, JFK, and many lesser known public figures, Cuordileone reveals how the era’s cult of toughness shaped the political dynamics of the time and inspired a reinvention of the liberal as a cold warrior. |
| fighting for american manhood: Duty beyond the Battlefield Le'Trice D. Donaldson, 2020-01-31 In a bold departure from previous scholarship, Le’Trice D. Donaldson locates the often overlooked era between the Civil War and the end of World War I as the beginning of black soldiers’ involvement in the long struggle for civil rights. Donaldson traces the evolution of these soldiers as they used their military service to challenge white notions of an African American second-class citizenry and forged a new identity as freedom fighters willing to demand the rights of full citizenship and manhood. Through extensive research, Donaldson not only illuminates this evolution but also interrogates the association between masculinity and citizenship and the ways in which performing manhood through military service influenced how these men struggled for racial uplift. Following the Buffalo soldier units and two regular army infantry units from the frontier and the Mexican border to Mexico, Cuba, and the Philippines, Donaldson investigates how these locations and the wars therein provide windows into how the soldiers’ struggles influenced black life and status within the United States. Continuing to probe the idea of what it meant to be a military race man—a man concerned with the uplift of the black race who followed the philosophy of progress—Donaldson contrasts the histories of officers Henry Flipper and Charles Young, two soldiers who saw their roles and responsibilities as black military officers very differently. Duty beyond the Battlefield demonstrates that from the 1870s to 1920s military race men laid the foundation for the “New Negro” movement and the rise of Black Nationalism that influenced the future leaders of the twentieth century Civil Rights movement. |
| fighting for american manhood: Becoming Men of Some Consequence John A. Ruddiman, 2014-12-15 Young Continental soldiers carried a heavy burden in the American Revolution. Their experiences of coming of age during the upheavals of war provide a novel perspective on the Revolutionary era, eliciting questions of gender, family life, economic goals, and politics. Going for a soldier forced young men to confront profound uncertainty, and even coercion, but also offered them novel opportunities. Although the war imposed obligations on youths, military service promised young men in their teens and early twenties alternate paths forward in life. Continental soldiers’ own youthful expectations about respectable manhood and their goals of economic competence and marriage not only ordered their experience of military service; they also shaped the fighting capacities of George Washington’s army and the course of the war. Becoming Men of Some Consequence examines how young soldiers and officers joined the army, their experiences in the ranks, their relationships with civilians, their choices about quitting long-term military service, and their attempts to rejoin the flow of civilian life after the war. The book recovers young soldiers’ perspectives and stories from military records, wartime letters and journals, and postwar memoirs and pension applications, revealing how revolutionary political ideology intertwined with rational calculations and youthful ambitions. Its focus on soldiers as young men offers a new understanding of the Revolutionary War, showing how these soldiers’ generational struggle for their own independence was a profound force within America’s struggle for its independence. |
| fighting for american manhood: For Cause and Comrades James M. McPherson, 1997-04-03 General John A. Wickham, commander of the famous 101st Airborne Division in the 1970s and subsequently Army Chief of Staff, once visited Antietam battlefield. Gazing at Bloody Lane where, in 1862, several Union assaults were brutally repulsed before they finally broke through, he marveled, You couldn't get American soldiers today to make an attack like that. Why did those men risk certain death, over and over again, through countless bloody battles and four long, awful years ? Why did the conventional wisdom -- that soldiers become increasingly cynical and disillusioned as war progresses -- not hold true in the Civil War? It is to this question--why did they fight--that James McPherson, America's preeminent Civil War historian, now turns his attention. He shows that, contrary to what many scholars believe, the soldiers of the Civil War remained powerfully convinced of the ideals for which they fought throughout the conflict. Motivated by duty and honor, and often by religious faith, these men wrote frequently of their firm belief in the cause for which they fought: the principles of liberty, freedom, justice, and patriotism. Soldiers on both sides harkened back to the Founding Fathers, and the ideals of the American Revolution. They fought to defend their country, either the Union--the best Government ever made--or the Confederate states, where their very homes and families were under siege. And they fought to defend their honor and manhood. I should not lik to go home with the name of a couhard, one Massachusetts private wrote, and another private from Ohio said, My wife would sooner hear of my death than my disgrace. Even after three years of bloody battles, more than half of the Union soldiers reenlisted voluntarily. While duty calls me here and my country demands my services I should be willing to make the sacrifice, one man wrote to his protesting parents. And another soldier said simply, I still love my country. McPherson draws on more than 25,000 letters and nearly 250 private diaries from men on both sides. Civil War soldiers were among the most literate soldiers in history, and most of them wrote home frequently, as it was the only way for them to keep in touch with homes that many of them had left for the first time in their lives. Significantly, their letters were also uncensored by military authorities, and are uniquely frank in their criticism and detailed in their reports of marches and battles, relations between officers and men, political debates, and morale. For Cause and Comrades lets these soldiers tell their own stories in their own words to create an account that is both deeply moving and far truer than most books on war. Battle Cry of Freedom, McPherson's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Civil War, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times, called history writing of the highest order. For Cause and Comrades deserves similar accolades, as McPherson's masterful prose and the soldiers' own words combine to create both an important book on an often-overlooked aspect of our bloody Civil War, and a powerfully moving account of the men who fought it. |
| fighting for american manhood: Still Fighting the Civil War David Goldfield, 2013-04-15 In the updated edition of his sweeping narrative on southern history, David Goldfield brings this extensive study into the present with a timely assessment of the unresolved issues surrounding the Civil War's sesquicentennial commemoration. Traversing a hundred and fifty years of memory, Goldfield confronts the remnants of the American Civil War that survive in the hearts of many of the South's residents and in the national news headlines of battle flags, racial injustice, and religious conflicts. Goldfield candidly discusses how and why white southern men fashioned the myths of the Lost Cause and Redemption out of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and how they shaped a religion to canonize the heroes and deify the events of those fateful years. He also recounts how groups of blacks and white women eventually crafted a different, more inclusive version of southern history and how that new vision competed with more traditional perspectives. The battle for southern history, and for the South, continues—in museums, public spaces, books, state legislatures, and the minds of southerners. Given the region's growing economic power and political influence, understanding this war takes on national significance. Through an analysis of ideas of history and memory, religion, race, and gender, Still Fighting the Civil War provides us with a better understanding of the South and one another. |
| fighting for american manhood: Manliness & Civilization Gail Bederman, 2008-04-07 When former heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries came out of retirement on the fourth of July, 1910 to fight current black heavywight champion Jack Johnson in Reno, Nevada, he boasted that he was doing it for the sole purpose of proving that a white man is better than a negro. Jeffries, though, was trounced. Whites everywhere rioted. The furor, Gail Bederman demonstrates, was part of two fundamental and volatile national obsessions: manhood and racial dominance. In turn-of-the-century America, cultural ideals of manhood changed profoundly, as Victorian notions of self-restrained, moral manliness were challenged by ideals of an aggressive, overtly sexualized masculinity. Bederman traces this shift in values and shows how it brought together two seemingly contradictory ideals: the unfettered virility of racially primitive men and the refined superiority of civilized white men. Focusing on the lives and works of four very different Americans—Theodore Roosevelt, educator G. Stanley Hall, Ida B. Wells, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman—she illuminates the ideological, cultural, and social interests these ideals came to serve. |
| fighting for american manhood: The Mourning After John Ibson, 2018-11-01 On the battlefields of World War II, with their fellow soldiers as the only shield between life and death, a generation of American men found themselves connecting with each other in new and profound ways. Back home after the war, however, these intimacies faced both scorn and vicious homophobia. The Mourning After makes sense of this cruel irony, telling the story of the unmeasured toll exacted upon generations of male friendships. John Ibson draws evidence from the contrasting views of male closeness depicted in WWII-era fiction by Gore Vidal and John Horne Burns, as well as from such wide-ranging sources as psychiatry texts, child development books, the memoirs of veterans’ children, and a slew of vernacular snapshots of happy male couples. In this sweeping reinterpretation of the postwar years, Ibson argues that a prolonged mourning for tenderness lost lay at the core of midcentury American masculinity, leaving far too many men with an unspoken ache that continued long after the fighting stopped, forever damaging their relationships with their wives, their children, and each other. |
| fighting for american manhood: Why Confederates Fought Aaron Sheehan-Dean, 2009-11-05 In the first comprehensive study of the experience of Virginia soldiers and their families in the Civil War, Aaron Sheehan-Dean captures the inner world of the rank-and-file. Utilizing new statistical evidence and first-person narratives, Sheehan-Dean explores how Virginia soldiers--even those who were nonslaveholders--adapted their vision of the war's purpose to remain committed Confederates. Sheehan-Dean challenges earlier arguments that middle- and lower-class southerners gradually withdrew their support for the Confederacy because their class interests were not being met. Instead he argues that Virginia soldiers continued to be motivated by the profound emotional connection between military service and the protection of home and family, even as the war dragged on. The experience of fighting, explains Sheehan-Dean, redefined southern manhood and family relations, established the basis for postwar race and class relations, and transformed the shape of Virginia itself. He concludes that Virginians' experience of the Civil War offers important lessons about the reasons we fight wars and the ways that those reasons can change over time. |
| fighting for american manhood: Remaking Manhood , 2016-03-10 Good Men Project Senior Editor Mark Greene's deeply emotional stories of boyhood and fatherhood intersect with groundbreaking research and data to create a compelling deconstruction of American masculinity. Greene's stories from the front lines of change exposes the dark and challenging impact of man box culture on men and women in America. |
| fighting for american manhood: Mad Blood Stirring Daemon Fairless, 2018-03-06 With a rare clarity and fearless honesty, journalist Daemon Fairless tackles the horrors and compulsions of male violence from the perspective of someone who struggles with violent impulses himself, creating a non-fiction masterpiece with the narrative power of novels such as Fight Club and A History of Violence. A man, no matter how civilized, is still an animal--and sometimes a dangerous one. Men are responsible for the lion's share of assault, rape, murder and warfare. Conventional wisdom chalks this up to socialization, that men are taught to be violent. And they are. But there's more to it. Violence is a dangerous desire--a set of powerful and inherent emotions we are loath to own up to. And so there remains a hidden geography to male violence--an inner ecosystem of rage, dominance, blood-lust, insecurity and bravado--yet to be mapped. Mad Blood Stirring is journalist Daemon Fairless's riveting first-person travelogue through this territory as he seeks to understand the inner lives of violent men and, ultimately, himself. |
| fighting for american manhood: Work Engendered Ava Baron, 2018-05-31 In tobacco fields, auto and radio factories, cigarmakers' tenements, textile mills, print shops, insurance companies, restaurants, and bars, notions of masculinity and femininity have helped shape the development of work and the working class. The fourteen original essays brought together here shed new light on the importance of gender for economic and class analysis and for the study of men as well as women workers. After an introduction by Ava Baron addressing current problems in conceptualizing gender and work, chapters by leading historians consider how gender has colored relations of power and hierarchy—between employers and workers, men and boys, whites and blacks, native-born Americans and immigrants, as well as between men and women—in North America from the 1830s to the 1970s. Individual essays explore a spectrum of topics including union bureaucratization, protective legislation, and consumer organizing. They examine how workers' concerns about gender identity influenced their job choices, the ways in which they thought about and performed their work, and the strategies they adopted toward employers and other workers. Taken together, the essays illuminate the plasticity of gender as men and women contest its meaning and its implications for class relations. Anyone interested in labor history, women's history, and the sociology of work or gender will want to read this pathbreaking book. |
| fighting for american manhood: Culture and International History Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht, Frank Schumacher, 2004 Combining the perspectives of 18 international scholars from Europe and the United States with a critical discussion of the role of culture in international relations, this volume introduces recent trends in the study of Culture and International History. It systematically explores the cultural dimension of international history, mapping existing approaches and conceptual lenses for the study of cultural factors and thus hopes to sharpen the awareness for the cultural approach to international history among both American and non-American scholars. The first part provides a methodological introduction, explores the cultural underpinnings of foreign policy, and the role of culture in international affairs by reviewing the historiography and examining the meaning of the word culture in the context of foreign relations. In the second part, contributors analyze culture as a tool of foreign policy. They demonstrate how culture was instrumentalized for diplomatic goals and purposes in different historical periods and world regions. The essays in the third part expand the state-centered view and retrace informal cultural relations among nations and peoples. This exploration of non-state cultural interaction focuses on the role of science, art, religion, and tourism. The fourth part collects the findings and arguments of part one, two, and three to define a roadmap for further scholarly inquiry. A group of commentators survey the preceding essays, place them into a larger research context, and address the question Where do we go from here? The last and fifth part presents a selection of primary sources along with individual comments highlighting a new genre of resources scholars interested in culture and international relations can consult. |
| fighting for american manhood: National Manhood Dana D. Nelson, 1998-10-14 National Manhood explores the relationship between gender, race, and nation by tracing developing ideals of citizenship in the United States from the Revolutionary War through the 1850s. Through an extensive reading of literary and historical documents, Dana D. Nelson analyzes the social and political articulation of a civic identity centered around the white male and points to a cultural moment in which the theoretical consolidation of white manhood worked to ground, and perhaps even found, the nation. Using political, scientific, medical, personal, and literary texts ranging from the Federalist papers to the ethnographic work associated with the Lewis and Clark expedition to the medical lectures of early gynecologists, Nelson explores the referential power of white manhood, how and under what conditions it came to stand for the nation, and how it came to be a fraternal articulation of a representative and civic identity in the United States. In examining early exemplary models of national manhood and by tracing its cultural generalization, National Manhood reveals not only how an impossible ideal has helped to form racist and sexist practices, but also how this ideal has simultaneously privileged and oppressed white men, who, in measuring themselves against it, are able to disavow their part in those oppressions. Historically broad and theoretically informed, National Manhood reaches across disciplines to engage those studying early national culture, race and gender issues, and American history, literature, and culture. |
| fighting for american manhood: A War of Frontier and Empire David J. Silbey, 2008-03-04 First-rate military history, A War of Frontier and Empire retells an often forgotten chapter in America's past, infusing it with commanding contemporary relevance. It has been termed an insurgency, a revolution, a guerrilla war, and a conventional war. As David J. Silbey demonstrates in this taut, compelling history, the 1899 Philippine-American War was in fact all of these. Played out over three distinct conflicts—one fought between the Spanish and the allied United States and Filipino forces; one fought between the United States and the Philippine Army of Liberation; and one fought between occupying American troops and an insurgent alliance of often divided Filipinos—the war marked America's first steps as a global power and produced a wealth of lessons learned and forgotten. |
| fighting for american manhood: Decolonizing Latinx Masculinities Arturo J. Aldama, Frederick Luis Aldama, 2020-09-08 Latinx hypersexualized lovers or kingpin predators pulsate from our TVs, smartphones, and Hollywood movie screens. Tweets from the executive office brand Latinxs as bad-hombre hordes and marauding rapists and traffickers. A-list Anglo historical figures like Billy the Kid haunt us with their toxic masculinities. These are the themes creatively explored by the eighteen contributors in Decolonizing Latinx Masculinities. Together they explore how legacies of colonization and capitalist exploitation and oppression have created toxic forms of masculinity that continue to suffocate our existence as Latinxs. And while the authors seek to identify all cultural phenomena that collectively create reductive, destructive, and toxic constructions of masculinity that traffic in misogyny and homophobia, they also uncover the many spaces—such as Xicanx-Indígena languages, resistant food cultures, music performances, and queer Latinx rodeo practices—where Latinx communities can and do exhale healing masculinities. With unity of heart and mind, the creative and the scholarly, Decolonizing Latinx Masculinities opens wide its arms to all non-binary, decolonial masculinities today to grow a stronger, resilient, and more compassionate new generation of Latinxs tomorrow. Contributors Arturo J. Aldama Frederick Luis Aldama T. Jackie Cuevas Gabriel S. Estrada Wayne Freeman Jonathan D. Gomez Ellie D. Hernández Alberto Ledesma Jennie Luna Sergio A. Macías Laura Malaver Paloma Martinez-Cruz L. Pancho McFarland William Orchard Alejandra Benita Portillos John-Michael Rivera Francisco E. Robles Lisa Sánchez González Kristie Soares Nicholas Villanueva Jr. |
| fighting for american manhood: I Am a Man! Steve Estes, 2005 I Am a Man!: Race, Manhood, and the Civil Rights Movement |
| fighting for american manhood: Fight Sports and American Masculinity Christopher David Thrasher, 2015-06-14 Throughout America's past, some men have feared the descent of their gender into effeminacy, and turned their eyes to the ring in hopes of salvation. This work explains how the dominant fight sports in the United States have changed over time in response to broad shifts in American culture and ideals of manhood, and presents a narrative of American history as seen from the bars, gyms, stadiums and living rooms of the heartland. Ordinary Americans were the agents who supported and participated in fight sports and determined its vision of masculinity. This work counters the economic determinism prevalent in studies of American fight sports, which overemphasize profit as the driving force in the popularization of these sports. The author also disputes previous scholarship's domestic focus, with an appreciation of how American fight sports are connected to the rest of the world. |
| fighting for american manhood: “Work or Fight!” G. Shenk, 2005-12-10 During World War I the U.S. demanded that all able-bodied men work or fight. White men who were husbands and fathers, owned property or worked at approved jobs had the benefits of citizenship without fighting. Others were often barred from achieving these benefits. This book tells the stories of those affected by the Selective Service System. |
| fighting for american manhood: No Bars to Manhood Daniel Berrigan, 2007-10-01 Committed radical that he is, Daniel Berrigan, launches his personal rockets against the social evils that disturb and preoccupy him. Beginning with a long autobiographical piece he traces the influences that brought him first to a radical stance and then to a direct confrontation with society. From this very intimate statement he develops his theme of a need for nonviolent revolutionary change in his reflections on his own trial and sentencing, in his thoughtful examination of the true implications of Christianity, and in his consideration of prophets as revolutionaries. In a long dialog with an SDS student about the 1969 Black/White confrontation at Cornell University, he relates the questions raised by that crisis to the larger crises of American life. Finally, he directs two stinging parables at the well-fed and the complacent. Probing and provocative, this work illuminates starkly the agonizing decisions people must make. |
| fighting for american manhood: War and Gender Joshua S. Goldstein, 2003-07-17 Gender roles are nowhere more prominent than in war. Yet contentious debates, and the scattering of scholarship across academic disciplines, have obscured understanding of how gender affects war and vice versa. In this authoritative and lively review of our state of knowledge, Joshua Goldstein assesses the possible explanations for the near-total exclusion of women from combat forces, through history and across cultures. Topics covered include the history of women who did fight and fought well, the complex role of testosterone in men's social behaviours, and the construction of masculinity and femininity in the shadow of war. Goldstein concludes that killing in war does not come naturally for either gender, and that gender norms often shape men, women, and children to the needs of the war system. lllustrated with photographs, drawings, and graphics, and drawing from scholarship spanning six academic disciplines, this book provides a unique study of a fascinating issue. |
| fighting for american manhood: Amateur Thomas Page McBee, 2019-05-14 *Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction *Shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award *Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize One of The Times UK’s Best Memoirs of 2018, BuzzFeed’s Best Nonfiction of 2018, Autostraddle’s Best LGBT Books of 2018, and 52 Insight’s Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2018 A “no-holds-barred examination of masculinity” (BuzzFeed) and violence from award-winning author Thomas Page McBee. In this “refreshing and radical” (The Guardian) narrative, Thomas McBee, a trans man, sets out to uncover what makes a man—and what being a “good” man even means—through his experience training for and fighting in a charity boxing match at Madison Square Garden. A self-described “amateur” at masculinity, McBee embarks on a wide-ranging exploration of gender in society, examining sexism, toxic masculinity, and privilege. As he questions the limitations of gender roles and the roots of masculine aggression, he finds intimacy, hope, and even love in the experience of boxing and in his role as a man in the world. Despite personal history and cultural expectations, “Amateur is a reminder that the individual can still come forward and fight” (The A.V. Club). “Sharp and precise, open and honest,” (Women’s Review of Books), McBee’s writing asks questions “relevant to all people, trans or not” (New York Newsday). Through interviews with experts in neuroscience, sociology, and critical race theory, he constructs a deft and thoughtful examination of the role of men in contemporary society. Amateur is a graceful and uncompromising look at gender by a fearless, fiercely honest writer. |
| fighting for american manhood: A Fighter's Heart Sam Sheridan, 2008-02-19 This “whirling, no-holds-barred,” national bestselling memoir of mixed martial arts by the author of The Fighter’s Mind is “adrenaline-addled and addictive” (Playboy). In A Fighter’s Heart, former merchant marine and Harvard graduate Sam Sheridan shares a “fascinating” first-person account of his life inside the world of professional MMA fighting “and his behind-the-scenes access makes for a gripping read” (Sara Cardace, The Washington Post). In 1999, after a series of adventurous jobs—construction at the South Pole, ranching in Montana, and sailing private yachts around the world—Sheridan found himself in Australia with time to finally indulge a long-dormant obsession: fighting. After training in Bangkok at the legendary Fairtex Gym, Sheridan stepped through the ropes for a professional bout, embarking on an epic journey to discover what only a fighter can know about fear, violence, and most of all, himself. From small-town Iowa to the beaches of Rio, from the streets of Oakland to the arenas of Tokyo, Sheridan trained, traveled, and fought with Olympic boxers, Brazilian jiu-jitsu stars, and Ultimate Fighting champions. This chronicle offers an insightful look at violence as a spectator sport, as well as a dizzying account of what it’s like to hit—and be hit by—some of the best fighters in the world. |
| fighting for american manhood: PTSD and Folk Therapy John Paul Wallis, Jay Mechling, 2019-09-06 Using war memoirs, war journalism, and John Paul Wallis’s own experience as a Marine, PTSD and Folk Therapy analyzes how the everyday folklore shared in male military groups serves as a short-term aid in coping with the stress of living, working, and fighting in the combat zone. |
| fighting for american manhood: The Myth of American Diplomacy Walter L. Hixson, 2008-10-01 In this major reconceptualization of the history of U.S. foreign policy, Walter Hixson engages with the entire sweep of that history, from its Puritan beginnings to the twenty-first century’s war on terror. He contends that a mythical national identity, which includes the notion of American moral superiority and the duty to protect all of humanity, has had remarkable continuity through the centuries, repeatedly propelling America into war against an endless series of external enemies. As this myth has supported violence, violence in turn has supported the myth. The Myth of American Diplomacy shows the deep connections between American foreign policy and the domestic culture from which it springs. Hixson investigates the national narratives that help to explain ethnic cleansing of Indians, nineteenth-century imperial thrusts in Mexico and the Philippines, the two World Wars, the Cold War, the Iraq War, and today’s war on terror. He examines the discourses within America that have continuously inspired what he calls our “pathologically violent foreign policy.” The presumption that, as an exceptionally virtuous nation, the United States possesses a special right to exert power only encourages violence, Hixson concludes, and he suggests some fruitful ways to redirect foreign policy toward a more just and peaceful world. |
| fighting for american manhood: Southern Masculinity Craig Thompson Friend, 2010-01-25 The follow-up to the critically acclaimed collection Southern Manhood: Perspectives on Masculinity in the Old South (Georgia, 2004), Southern Masculinity explores the contours of southern male identity from Reconstruction to the present. Twelve case studies document the changing definitions of southern masculine identity as understood in conjunction with identities based on race, gender, age, sexuality, and geography. After the Civil War, southern men crafted notions of manhood in opposition to northern ideals of masculinity and as counterpoint to southern womanhood. At the same time, manliness in the South--as understood by individuals and within communities--retained and transformed antebellum conceptions of honor and mastery. This collection examines masculinity with respect to Reconstruction, the New South, racism, southern womanhood, the Sunbelt, gay rights, and the rise of the Christian Right. Familiar figures such as Arthur Ashe are investigated from fresh angles, while other essays plumb new areas such as the womanless wedding and Cherokee masculinity. |
| fighting for american manhood: The Wimp Factor Stephen Ducat, 2005-09-07 In this landmark exploration of how male anxiety has come to define our political culture, Stephen J. Ducat shows the link between the desperate macho strutting of male politicians, the gender gap in voting behavior, and fundamentalist holy wars. He argues that a direct association exists between the magnitude of a man's femiphobia-that is, his terror of being perceived as feminine-and his tendency to embrace right-wing political opinions. From the strenuous efforts by handlers to counter George H. W. Bush's wimp factor to the swaggering arrogance that led to the moral and military quagmire in U.S.-occupied Iraq, anxious masculinity has been a discernible subtext in politics. Ducat shows how this anxiety has been an underlying force in public life throughout the history of Western culture, and also explores why and how certain political issues get gendered. Analyzing various aspects of popular culture and drawing on pioneering research on the gender gap, The Wimp Factor is a fascinating exposé that will alter our understanding of contemporary politics. |
| fighting for american manhood: No More Sex War Neil Lyndon, 1992 |
| fighting for american manhood: Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire Amy S. Greenberg, 2005-06-06 This book documents the potency of Manifest destiny in the antebellum era. |
| fighting for american manhood: Malestrom Carolyn Custis James, 2015-06-02 Updated and expanded—with a new foreword by Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne—Malestrom provides a redemptive vision of biblical manhood and a way through the treacherous seas of patriarchy. Like the danger of a maelstrom in the open seas, a relentless force threatens our culture, swirling with hidden currents that distorts God's image of personhood. This book reveals how the malestrom is one of the Enemy's single most successful strategies. Its victories are flashed before us every day in the headlines as men lose sight of who God created them to be. It has consumed the evangelical church that stoops to offering toxic manly solutions to the wrongs it perceives in society and distracts from the rich potential God has entrusted to his sons. Digging deeply into the stories of men in the Bible who subverted cultural hierarchies, Carolyn Custis James shows us how countercultural God's design for men really is. Through personal story, biblical commentary, and cultural analysis, Custis James: Makes a strong case for the unbiblical nature of patriarchy. Illuminates the sociology of marginalization and cultural gender roles. Takes a close biblical look at Jesus and what his character and humanity means to the men of the church today. Malestrom offers what we so desperately need—a biblical, global, timeless vision of godly personhood that is big enough to encompass the diversity of men's lives and strong enough to withstand the crises they face. It is one thing to critique the abuses of a domineering masculinity and lament the religious and societal consequences, but Carolyn Custis James takes the next crucial step and offers us a better path forward. For those asking, What now? Malestrom serves as a sure-footed guide. —Kristin Kobes Du Mez |
| fighting for american manhood: Iron John Robert Bly, 2004-07-28 In this deeply learned book, poet and translator Robert Bly offers nothing less than a new vision of what it is to be a man.Bly's vision is based on his ongoing work with men and reflections on his own life. He addresses the devastating effects of remote fathers and mourns the disappearance of male initiation rites in our culture. Finding rich meaning in ancient stories and legends, Bly uses the Grimm fairy tale Iron John, in which the narrator, or Wild Man, guides a young man through eight stages of male growth, to remind us of archetypes long forgotten-images of vigorous masculinity, both protective and emotionally centered.Simultaneously poetic and down-to-earth, combining the grandeur of myth with the practical and often painful lessons of our own histories, Iron John is a rare work that will continue to guide and inspire men-and women-for years to come. |
| fighting for american manhood: Big Little Man Alex Tizon, 2014 A journalist presents an intimate assessment of the mythology, experience, and psyche of the Asian-American male that traces his own experiences as an immigrant under the constraints of American cultural stereotypes. |
| fighting for american manhood: Heartland Lucy Hounsom, 2017-08-24 She came to protect a people, but she needs to preserve a world. Kyndra has saved and damned the people of Mariar. Her star-born powers healed a land in turmoil, but destroyed an ancient magic – which once concealed them from invaders. Now Kyndra must head into enemy territory to secure peace. She finds the Sartyan Empire, unstable but as warlike as ever. It’s plagued by dissident factions, yet its emperor still has the strength to crush her homeland. The Khronostians, assassins who dance through time, could help Kyndra; or they might be her undoing. And deep within the desert, Char Lesko struggles to control his own emerging powers. He’s been raised by a mercenary whose secrets could change everything – including the future and the past. But when Kyndra and Char meet, will their goals align? Kyndra must harness the full glory of the stars and Char has to channel his rage, or two continents will be lost. |
| fighting for american manhood: Why America Fights Susan A. Brewer, 2011-03-17 Why America Fights explores how the U.S. government has sold war aims designed to rally public support throughout the 20th century. |
| fighting for american manhood: Boyhoods Ken Corbett, 2009 Familiar and expected gender patterns help us to understand boys but often constrict our understanding of any given boy. In Boy Hoods, Corbett seeks to release boys from the grip of expectation as Mary Pipher did for girls in Reviving Ophelia. |
| fighting for american manhood: At War David Kieran, Edwin A. Martini, 2018-04-05 The country’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, its interventions around the world, and its global military presence make war, the military, and militarism defining features of contemporary American life. The armed services and the wars they fight shape all aspects of life—from the formation of racial and gendered identities to debates over environmental and immigration policy. Warfare and the military are ubiquitous in popular culture. At War offers short, accessible essays addressing the central issues in the new military history—ranging from diplomacy and the history of imperialism to the environmental issues that war raises and the ways that war shapes and is shaped by discourses of identity, to questions of who serves in the U.S. military and why and how U.S. wars have been represented in the media and in popular culture. |
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Pick your favorite fighter in one of our free online fighting games! Whether you prefer a punch up, sword fights or gun battles, there are plenty of exciting titles to choose from. Sort by most …
UFC - YouTube
Ultimate Fighting Championship® is the world's leading mixed martial arts organization. Over the past decade, with the help of state athletic commissions throughout the United States, UFC® …
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We have many fighting games to choose from, and hundreds of fighters you can master. Each game includes instructions on how to control your fighter, and some games features tips which …
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In fighting games you can duel against the computer or challenge your friends online, in ruthless confrontations! Fight with your fists and use destructive techniques or weapons to beat your …
The Official Home of Ultimate Fighting Championship | UFC.com
The official home of Ultimate Fighting Championship. Enjoy the latest breaking news, fights, behind-the-scenes access and more.
UFC, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) News, Results: MMA Fighting
MMA News & results for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), Strikeforce & more Mixed Martial Arts fights
Free Online Fighting Games
Among the most popular categories, we can mention street fighting games, wrestling games or more recently robot combat. You can play on Gameslol at several of these free games with no …
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Our free browser fighting games come in every flavor that the genre has to offer, from rigorous sports simulators to silly party games with physics to match. Our fighting games are set in …
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Dec 13, 2023 · Martial arts are fighting styles from around the world. Each style trains people to fight or defend themselves. Some martial arts use strikes with fists, elbows, knees, and shins …
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Apr 28, 2025 · Whether you're fighting on the street or fighting in a controlled environment, knowing how to assume the correct stance and to target your opponent's weakest areas can …
Fighting Games ️ Play on CrazyGames
Pick your favorite fighter in one of our free online fighting games! Whether you prefer a punch up, sword fights or gun battles, there are plenty of exciting titles to choose from. Sort by most …
UFC - YouTube
Ultimate Fighting Championship® is the world's leading mixed martial arts organization. Over the past decade, with the help of state athletic commissions throughout the United States, UFC® …
FIGHTING GAMES - Play Online for Free! - Poki
We have many fighting games to choose from, and hundreds of fighters you can master. Each game includes instructions on how to control your fighter, and some games features tips which …
Fighting Games - Play Online on Snokido
In fighting games you can duel against the computer or challenge your friends online, in ruthless confrontations! Fight with your fists and use destructive techniques or weapons to beat your …
The Official Home of Ultimate Fighting Championship | UFC.com
The official home of Ultimate Fighting Championship. Enjoy the latest breaking news, fights, behind-the-scenes access and more.
UFC, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) News, Results: MMA Fighting
MMA News & results for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), Strikeforce & more Mixed Martial Arts fights
Free Online Fighting Games
Among the most popular categories, we can mention street fighting games, wrestling games or more recently robot combat. You can play on Gameslol at several of these free games with no …
Fighting Games ️ | Play For Free on GamePix
Our free browser fighting games come in every flavor that the genre has to offer, from rigorous sports simulators to silly party games with physics to match. Our fighting games are set in …
18 Different Types of Martial Arts - MiddleEasy
Dec 13, 2023 · Martial arts are fighting styles from around the world. Each style trains people to fight or defend themselves. Some martial arts use strikes with fists, elbows, knees, and shins …
3 Ways to Fight - wikiHow
Apr 28, 2025 · Whether you're fighting on the street or fighting in a controlled environment, knowing how to assume the correct stance and to target your opponent's weakest areas can …
