Making War at Fort Hood: Life and Uncertainty in a Military Community

(Paperback)

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Making War at Fort Hood offers an illuminating look at war through the daily lives of the people whose job it is to produce it. Kenneth MacLeish conducted a year of intensive fieldwork among soldiers and their families at and around the US Army's Fort Hood in central Texas. He shows how war's reach extends far beyond the battlefield into military c

Reviews

Third Place for the 2013 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing, Society for Humanistic Anthropology and American Anthropological Association Honorable Mention for the 2015 Delmos Jones and Jagna Scharff Memorial Book Award, Society for the Anthropology of North America "MacLeish writes eloquently... [T]his portrait of Army life on American turf is a welcome change of pace from the recent surge of battle-focused narratives."--Publishers Weekly "In bringing troops from the background to the front where they belong, this book should be required reading for Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and anyone else responsible for sending soldiers to that folly in the desert. They should read it before they go to bed and when they wake up. MacLeish has shown them, and us, what we do to others when we send them to fight our wars."--James T Crouse, Times Higher Education "Making War at Fort Hood is an ambitious, provocative book. It will be of significant value to historians of contemporary military conflicts, the organizational culture of the U.S. Army, and the lived experience of war... It is an important work that deserves attention."--Jacqueline Whitt, H-Net Reviews "Making War at Fort Hood is essential reading for those with an interest in modern Army life and for those in leadership positions."--Lieutenant Colonel G. Alan Knight, Journal of Army History "In Making War at Fort Hood, Kenneth MacLeish ... draws on interviews with [returning soldiers] and members of their families in an ethnographic exploration of the impact of deployment on their everyday lives... MacLeish documents, often poignantly, the difficulties soldiers have in making sense of their experiences and in moving on."--Dr. Glenn Altschuler, Florida Courier "The real thrust of [Making War at Fort Hood] is to show the American public--insulated from having to care greatly by an all-volunteer army and battles being fought on credit--that it nonetheless bears responsibility for the violence being done abroad and at home in its name."--ForeWord "To its great credit, MacLeish's project refuses to paint soldiers as either noble heroes or unwitting victims, two of the most dominant and therefore the most tired archetypes of our time. In a society that has exoticized and abstracted the military, MacLeish re-humanizes it. He is also remarkably precise in how he describes the institution of the Army: how its various bureaucracies, all geared at least tangentially toward killing people and destroying property, prescribe and encompass so many aspects of a soldier's life, from the most consequential to the seemingly benign, such as haircut styles and family day picnics. MacLeish's book is smart, necessary, and insightful."--Brian Van Reet, Daily Beast "The book illuminates the impact that two wars over a 12-year period can have on deployed soldiers, their families and their community."--San Antonio Express-News "Drawing on observations and interviews conducted during a year at Fort Hood, this ethnography provides a poignant account of military life, especially the impact of war on U.S. soldiers and their families... This concise, engaging, and well-referenced text is a welcome addition to the field of military ethnography."--Choice "MacLeish offers us something richer: a sensitively rendered portrait of social actors who both do and do not get to choose their course, who force us to rethink basic notions of agency and autonomy from the vantage point of violence as a way of life."--Marcel La Flamm, Public Books "A refreshing approach."--Annessa Ann Babic, Journal of American Studies of Turkey "In this theoretically rich, empathic, and revelatory ethnography, Kenneth MacLeish ably tackles the challenges that face all US anthropologists who engage with the military... The book is impressive and engaging in theoretical terms... MacLeish has made an incisive contribution to military anthropology that will be of particular value to students of violence, care, US society, or fine ethnographic writing."--Keith Brown, Great Plains Research

Author Bio

Kenneth T. MacLeish is assistant professor of medicine, health, and society at Vanderbilt University.