In time of war: understanding American public opinion from World War II to Iraq

From World II to in Iraq, periods of international conflict seem like unique moments in U.S. political history - but when it comes to public opinion, they are not. To make this ground breaking revelation, of War explodes conventional wisdom about American reactions to World II, as well as more recent conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Adam J. Berinsky argues that public response to these crises has been shaped less by their defining characteristics - such as what they cost in lives and resources - than by same political interests and group affiliations that influence our ideas about domestic issues. With help of World II - era survey data that had gone virtually untouched for past sixty years, Berinsky begins by disproving myth of the good war that Americans all fell in line to support after Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The attack, he reveals, did not significantly alter public opinion but merely punctuated interventionist sentiment that had already risen in response to ways that political leaders at home had framed fighting abroad. Weaving his findings into first general theory of factors that shape American wartime opinion, Berinsky also sheds new light on our reactions to other crises. He shows, for example, that our attitudes toward restricted civil liberties during Vietnam and after 9/11 stemmed from same kinds of judgments we make during times of peace. With Iraq and Afghanistan now competing for attention with urgent issues within United States, In Time of War offers a timely reminder of full extent to which foreign and domestic politics profoundly influence - and ultimately illuminate - each other.