American Militarism and Anti-Militarism in Popular Media, 1945-1970

Scholars have characterized the early decades of the Cold War as an era of rising militarism in the United States but most Americans continued to identify themselves as fundamentally anti-militaristic. To them, "militaristic" defined the authoritarian regimes of Germany and Japan that the nation had defeated in World War II—aggressive, power-hungry countries in which the military possessed power outside civilian authority.

Much of the popular culture in the decades following World War II re...