This book traces the effects of the feminist and civil rights movements in the construction of Hollywood action heroes. Starting in the late 1980s, action blockbusters regularly have featured masculine figures who choose love and community over the path of the stoic loner committed solely to duty. The American heroic quest of the past 25 years increasingly has involved a reclamation of home, creating a place for the Hero at the hearth, part of a more intimate community with less restrictive gender and racial boundaries. The author presents pieces of contemporary popular culture that create the complex mosaic of the present-day American heroic ideal. Hollywood popular films are examined that best represent the often painful shift from traditional heroic masculinity to a masculinity that is less "exceptional" and more vulnerable. There are also chapters on how issues of race and gender intersect with the new masculinity and on subgenres of 1990s films that also developed this postfeminist masculinity.

Brings together 1,000 focused biographies of Americans who affected how the United States made, supported, perceived, and protested its major wars from the Revolution to Gulf War II. Inventors and scientists, nurses and physicians, reformers and clerics, civil rights and labor leaders, financiers and economist, artists and musicians have all been soldiers on the home front. Home Front Heroes brings together brief and focused biographies of 1,000 Americans who affected how the United States made, supported, perceived and protested its major war efforts from the Revolution to Gulf War II. Battlefield victories and defeats are in a very real sense the reflection of the society waging war. Inventors and scientists, social reformers and clerics, civil rights and labor leaders, nurses and physicians, actors and directors, financiers and industrialists, economists and psychologists, artists and musicians, writers and journalists, have all been soldiers on the home front. The biographical entries highlighting the subjects' wartime contributions are arranged alphabetically. Many of the entries also include suggestions for further reading. Thematic indexes make it easy to look up people alphabetically by last name and by war, and other indices list entries under broad categories - Arts and Culture; Business, Industry, and Labor; Nursing and Medicine; Science, Engineering and Inventions - with more detailed occupational background. Entries include: Julia Ward Howe, composer of The Battle Hymn of the Republic; Robert Fulton, inventor of the steam engine and architect of the submarine Nautilus; Martin Brander, maker of Eliot's Saddle Ring Carbine; Robert Parker Parrott, inventor of the Parrott cannon; Novelist and War Correspondent Stephen Crane; Founder of the Army Nurse Corps Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee; Composer John Philip Sousa (Stars and Stripes Forever); Louis M. Terman, who invented the IQ test; Reginald Fessenden, developer of a sonic depth finder; machine-gun inventor Benjamin Hotchkiss; Labor leader John L. Lewis; Comedian and USO stalwart Bob Hope; Dr. Ancel Keys developer of the K-ration; napalm inventor Louis F. Fieser; and many more. The work is fully indexed, and contains an extensive bibliography.

A new compendium of firsthand reminiscences of life on the American home front during World War II. America's Home Front Heroes: An Oral History of World War II brings together in one rich resource the voices of those whom history often leaves out—the ordinary men, women, and children caught up in an extraordinary time. America's Home Front Heroes is divided into four sections: A Time for Heightened Passion, A Time for Caution and Prejudice, A Time for Flag Waving, and A Time for War Plant Women. The 34 brief oral histories within these sections capture the full diversity of the United States during the war, with contributions coming from men, women, and children of all backgrounds, including Japanese Americans, conscientious objectors, African Americans, housewives, and journalists. A treasure trove for researchers and World War II enthusiasts, this remarkable volume offers members of "the greatest generation" an opportunity to relive their defining era. For those with no direct experience of the period, it's a chance to learn firsthand what it was like living in the United States at a pivotal moment in history.

Dashing and valiantly wounded, Captain John Gallows could have stepped straight out of an army recruitment poster. Leanne Sample can't help being impressed—although the lovely Red Cross nurse tries to hide it. She knows better than to get attached to the daring captain who is only home to heal and help rally support for the war's final push. As soon as he's well enough, he'll rush back to Europe, back to war—and far away from South Carolina and Leanne. But when an epidemic strikes close to home, John comes to realize what it truly means to be a hero—Leanne's hero.

New hope for a soldier Heartland Courtship by Lyn Cote Quaker Rachel Woolsey’s plans to have her own bakery and homestead seem out of reach—until the handsome ex-soldier she nurses back to health offers to help her. At first, Brennan Merriday intends to stay in Pepin, Wisconsin, only long enough to repay his debt to the pretty baker. But soon he longs to rescue dreams of family—for both of them Homefront Hero by Allie Pleiter Dashing and valiantly wounded, Captain John Gallows could have stepped straight out of an army recruitment poster. Leanne Sample can’t help being impressed—although the lovely Red Cross nurse tries to hide it. She knows as soon as he’s well enough, he’ll rush back to war—and far away from South Carolina. But when an epidemic strikes close to home, John comes to realize what it truly means to be a hero—Leanne’s hero. USA TODAY Bestselling Author Lyn Cote

From the New York Times bestselling author of Heroes Proved, a moving collection of “straightforward, honest testimonials to the courage American troops display on and off the battlefield” (Kirkus Reviews). For more than a dozen years, combat-decorated Marine Oliver North and his award-winning documentary team from FOX News Channel’s War Stories traveled to the frontlines of the War on Terror to profile the dedicated men and women who serve our nation. This time, he follows them from the battlefield to the homefront and finds extraordinary inspiration in their triumph over life-altering adversity. In this new volume of his New York Times bestselling American Heroes series, North describes the courage, commitment, and strength of those who serve—and those who love them. The term “selfless devotion” may be a cliché to many—but not to the men and women on the pages of this book. Their stories resound with bravery, a warrior ethos, and spiritual strength that will encourage us all. Heroes are people who knowingly place themselves at risk for the benefit of others. Since the terror attack of September 11, 2001, more than two million young Americans have volunteered to serve in difficult and dangerous places. No military force in history has been asked to do more than those who have served and sacrificed in this long fight. They are American heroes. So too are their loved ones here at home. These are their stories.

Fourteen-year-old Tai Shimoda's family has lost everything. Like many other Japanese-Americans at the start of World War II, Tai's family has been forced to move to Tule Lake Relocation Center in Northern California. Though he misses his friends back home, Tai does his best to start a new life behind the barbed wire of camp. But in the spring of 1943, tensions at Tule Lake are growing. Tai's older brother has joined a group who has refused to swear allegiance to the United States. They call themselves the No-Nos. Tai's father calls them Disloyals. When the camp begins to split in two, Tai must decide what he believes. Will he join his beloved brother and the No-Nos or, like his father, remain true to America?