Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane, and the High-and-Tight: Gender, Folklore, and Changing Military Culture.(Book review)

Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane, and the High-And-Tight: Gender, Folklore, and Changing Military Culture. By Carol Burke. (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. Pp. xix + 264, preface, bibliography, acknowledgments, notes, index.)

As I write this review, the war in Iraq rages with no end in sight. This war and the fighting between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah dominate the news. Militarism has a prominent place on our cultural landscape, making Carol Burke's book, Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane, and the High-And-Tight: Gender, Folklore, and Changing Military Culture, especially relevant. Despite all the media attention devoted to these contemporary conflicts, public officials and pundits don't seem to be asking how gender socialization and male aggression are shaping militarism in our world.

A folklorist who taught as a civilian faculty member at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Burke offers rare insights, …