In a compelling evaluation of Cold War popular culture, Professor Gregory A. Daddis, the USS Midway Chair in Modern US Military History at San Diego State University, explores how pop culture from the 1950s and early 1960s helped shape the attitudes of young, working-class Americans, the same men who fought and served in the long and bitter war in Vietnam.

By examining Cold War “macho pulps”—men’s magazines boasting titles like Man’s Conquest, Battle Cry, and Adventure Life—Daddis reveals how war stories in popular culture tell us something important about American society’s desire to remember war in certain ways and how these stories established GIs’ expectations and perceptions of the war in Vietnam.

Gregory A. Daddis is a professor of history at San Diego State University and holds the USS Midway Chair in Modern US Military History. Daddis joined SDSU after directing the MA Program in War and Society Studies at Chapman University. Prior, he served as the Chief of the American History Division in the Department of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point. A retired US Army colonel, he deployed to both Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. Daddis specializes in the history of the Vietnam Wars and the Cold War era and has authored five books, including Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men's Adventure Magazines (2020) and Withdrawal: Reassessing America’s Final Years in Vietnam (2017). He has published numerous journal articles and several op-ed pieces commenting on current military affairs, including writings in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and National Interest magazine. Recipient of the 2022-2023 Fulbright Distinguished Scholar Award.

This event is in-person and also available via Zoom.