Entangling Alliances: Foreign War Brides and American Soldiers in the Twentieth Century

by Susan Zeiger

Overview

Throughout the twentieth century, American male soldiers returned home from wars with foreign-born wives in tow, often from allied but at times from enemy nations, resulting in a new, official category of immigrant: the “allied” war bride. These brides began to appear en masse after World War I, peaked after World War II, and persisted through the Korean and Vietnam Wars. GIs also met and married former “enemy” women under conditions of postwar occupation, although at times the US government banned such unions.
In this comprehensive, complex history of war brides in 20th-century American history, Susan Zeiger uses relationships between American male soldiers and foreign women as a lens to view larger issues of sexuality, race, and gender in United States foreign relations. Entangling Alliances draws on a rich array of sources to trace how war and postwar anxieties about power and national identity have long been projected onto war brides, and how these anxieties translate into public policies, particularly immigration.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814797259
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	03/01/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	312
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Susan Zeiger is author of In Uncle Sam’s Service: Women Workers with the American Expeditionary Force, 1917-1919. She works for Primary Source, an education non-profit in the Boston area.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction  1 “Cupid in the AEF”  U.S. Soldiers and Women abroad in World War I 2 “The Worst Kind of Women”  Foreign War Brides in 1920s America 3 GIs and Girls around the Globe  The Geopolitics of Sex and Marriage in World War II 4 “Good Mothers”  GI Brides after World War II 5 Interracialism, Pluralism, and Civil Rights War Bride Marriage in the 1940s and 1950s 6 The Demise of the War Bride Korea, Vietnam, and Beyond Notes Index  About the Author 

Editorial Reviews

"A wonderful study of twentieth-century war brides and their changing meanings in American society. Zeiger shows how useful it can be to study the United States and the world through the lens of gender."

Beth Bailey

"Fascinating and far-reaching, exhaustively researched and grippingly readable, Zeigers account of American & war brides shrewdly links geopolitical affairs to intimate ones, and in so doing provides a novel and revealing angle on American nationalism, racism, and expanding sense of world mission during the twentieth century."

Nancy F. Cott

"When American military forces have fought abroad, intercultural romances have been 'a minefield of political, racial and moral sensitivities," as Susan Zeiger shows in her excellent study of the foreign wartime brides of American soldiers in the twentieth century . . . She anchors her work in the study of gender, specifically the ways that women and women's sexuality have been mobilized in the context of war and the postwar period."

The Journal of American History - Barbara G. Friedman

"Americans ambivalence about their (our) place in the world becomes so crystal clear when, guided here by Zeiger, we take seriously the experiences of women who have married U.S. soldiers. Entangling Alliances reveals the perpetual anxieties of both civilians and officials about the innocence of & our boys, seduction, romance, and & their women. I learned so much from every page of this important book."

Cynthia Enloe

A wonderful study of twentieth-century war brides and their changing meanings in American society. Zeiger shows how useful it can be to study the United States and the world through the lens of gender.”
-Beth Bailey,author of America’s Army: Making the All-Volunteer Force

“Fascinating and far-reaching, exhaustively researched and grippingly readable, Zeiger’s account of American ‘war brides’ shrewdly links geopolitical affairs to intimate ones, and in so doing provides a novel and revealing angle on American nationalism, racism, and expanding sense of world mission during the twentieth century.“
-Nancy F. Cott,author of Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation

"When American military forces have fought abroad, intercultural romances have been 'a minefield of political, racial and moral sensitivities," as Susan Zeiger shows in her excellent study of the foreign wartime brides of American soldiers in the twentieth century . . . She anchors her work in the study of gender, specifically the ways that women and women's sexuality have been mobilized in the context of war and the postwar period."-Barbara G. Friedman,The Journal of American History

“Americans’ ambivalence about their (our) place in the world becomes so crystal clear when, guided here by Zeiger, we take seriously the experiences of women who have married U.S. soldiers. Entangling Alliances reveals the perpetual anxieties of both civilians and officials about the innocence of ‘our boys,’ seduction, romance, and ‘their women.’ I learned so much from every page of this important book.”

-Cynthia Enloe,author of The Curious Feminist

From the Publisher