Reviews

"Roger Stahl is a one-man bomb squad, painstakingly disentangling the complex cultural circuitry that wires our entertainment consumption habits to U.S. military hardware. This richly sourced, vividly illustrated page-turner will recast your next cinema, stadium, or virtual world visit in a startling new light."

—Gordon Mitchell, University of Pittsburgh and author of Strategic Deception: Rhetoric, Science and Politics in Missile Defense Advocacy

"While many have written about militarism, and many more have written about the entertainment industry, I do not know of a book that ties the two together in such an insightful argument. 'Militainment, Inc' is a smart and engaging book about how US citizens relate to and engage with US military actions and how the increasing integration of militarism and the entertainment industries limits democratic commentary. I can't imagine anything more timely."

—Susan Jeffords, University of Washington and author of Remasculinization of America: Gender and the Vietnam War

"Roger Stahl has systematically researched U.S. popular culture and recent military history and has provided a highly illuminating study of how recent wars have been produced as media spectacles and processed by audiences as entertainment, hence the term Militainment. Providing illuminating studies of the media, sport, video games, TV reality shows, and other forms of militainment, Stahl’s book should be read by everyone concerned with the intersection of war and entertainment in the contemporary era."

—Douglas Kellner, UCLA and author of the forthcoming Cinema Wars: Hollywood Film and Politics in the Bush/Cheney Era

"From the thrills of virtual war worlds to macabre fascinations with deadly killing fields, Roger Stahl tracks a culture where war and its horrors are transformed into a landscape of entertainment. This new geography of Militainment is mapped with great skill in an original work that is essential reading for those who would like to see beyond the battlefield to a world of peace and stability."

—Robin Andersen, author of A Century of Media, A Century of War, winner of the Alpha Sigma Nu Book Award 2007