Defining the Peace: World War II Veterans, Race, and the Remaking of Southern Political Tradition

In the aftermath of World War II, Georgia’s veterans — black, white, liberal, reactionary, pro-union, and anti-union — all found that service in the war enhanced their sense of male, political, and racial identity, but often in contradictory ways. In Defining the Peace, Jennifer E. Brooks shows how veterans competed in a protracted and sometimes violent struggle to determine the complex character of Georgia’s postwar future.

Brooks finds that veterans shaped the key events of the era, includ...