![]() Readers may flip between the chapters and back matter because the endnotes are so expertly done. One need look no further than the organization of the book itself: the main content is set at a fast-moving, readable 200 pages, followed by 92 pages of endnotes, none of which should be ignored. Venable’s skill in massing relevant sources and employing them throughout a narrative as engaging as it is informative is, in this reviewer’s opinion, the greatest strength of this book. ![]() Especially praiseworthy is the strength of her primary-source research, which includes personal papers and oral histories collected from the Archives of the Marine Corps, the Library of Congress, and the National Archives numerous articles drawn from newspapers and magazines of the era and more than a hundred published books and monographs. Naval Academy, and possesses degrees in history from Texas A&M University, the University of Hawaii, and Duke University-shine through in her work, as she expertly blends a captivating writing style with solid research and analysis. Her training and experience as a military historian-she currently teaches at the Air Command and Staff College, has taught at the U.S. Venable accomplishes a great deal with this book, taking a subject familiar to scholars and enthusiasts of military history and exploring a facet of it in a truly innovative way. The chapter on hypermasculinization is particularly fascinating, especially as the author explains that the Marine Corps’ identity ironically became more masculine when women began joining the ranks during the First World War. The second section discusses the impact of democratization and hypermasculinity on the Corps’ internal identity and external image, both of which had, by the early twentieth century, become well-known throughout American society. The inspiration for and refinement of this new image benefited greatly from the Corps’ expanding role in the United States’ small imperial wars ashore in Central America and the Caribbean and by the adoption of new marketing and advertising tactics to improve recruitment practices. The book is divided into two major sections: “Crafting the Corps’ Identity” and “Deploying the Corps’ Identity.” The first section details how the Marine Corps distanced itself from the Navy by developing a unique image and persona. The author does not seek to rewrite what has already been written, but rather frames her work through a social-cultural lens to identify and explain the Marine Corps mystique that has captivated generations of Americans and those around the world. Those interested in better understanding what it meant to be a Marine during that period should look no further than Venable’s book. Marine Corps Story, and monographs published by the Marine Corps History Division in Quantico, Virginia. ![]() Millett’s Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps, J. ![]() ![]() Readers seeking a more general military history of the Corps in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries can consult Allan R. Much more an institutional history than an operational history, How the Few Became the Proud builds upon a well-established foundation of books and articles that detail the history and development of the Marine Corps between the American Civil War and World War I. Venable argues the Corps purposely crafted an identity for itself “in a way that made it almost self-explanatory to any American just what it meant to be a Marine.” Navy, while at the same time trying to retain the best qualities of both services, it developed an exclusive image to safeguard its continued existence as an independent organization. In attempting to distinguish itself from the U.S. The Marine Corps during that era had difficulty selecting a single specific military mission for itself. Venable argues that between 18, the Corps endeavored to find a way to distinguish itself as an independent fighting force and identify what it meant to be a “soldier of the sea”-neither a soldier, nor a sailor, but a Marine. The Marine Corps has dealt with the issue of its very survival since its establishment in the late eighteenth century. ![]()
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