Historian Jay M. Winter has published an essay in Dædalus (Summer 2011) on “Filming War.” This article is part of a special issue of Dædalus devoted to “The Modern American Military,” including contributions by noted military historians Brian McAllister Linn, James J. Sheehan, Andrew J. Bacevich, and others.

Winter divides American filmmaking on war into three phases: to 1933, 1933-1970, and 1970 to the present. Winter’s essay is relatively brief, limiting the scope of his analysis. His main conclusion is that, at least by the 1970s, “the portrait of the soldier, and particularly the American soldier, came to be more important than the war in which he served.”

NIU students in HIST 390 History and Film: War in Film will be interested in this essay.