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The Best War Ever: America and World War II. By Michael C. C. Adams. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. xviii, 189 pp. Cloth, $38.95, ISBN 0-8018-4696-X. Paper, $12.95, ISBN 0-8018-4697-8.)
Reading Michael C. C. Adams's The Best War Ever is as bracing as a plunge in cold water after you have lingered too long in a sauna. It clears your head and tunes your senses. Adams subjects "substantial aspects of the Good War myth to fresh analysis...to convey the idea that we do both the past and the present a disservice when we simplify into mythology the complex patterns of human experience Adams raises significant issues around the hypothesis that "as American economic power, world prestige, and self-confidence have waned in the last decades, the Good War as a time when everything worked well has...