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Throughout the twentieth century, American male soldiers returned home from wars with foreign-born wives in tow, often from allied but at times from enemy nations, resulting in a new, official category of immigrant: the “allied” war bride. These brides began to appear en masse after World War I, peaked after World War II, and persisted through the Korean and Vietnam Wars. GIs also met and married former “enemy” women under conditions of postwar occupation, although at times the US government banned such unions.
In this comprehensive, complex history of war brides in 20th-century American history, Susan Zeiger uses relationships between American male soldiers and foreign women as a lens to view larger issues of sexuality, race, and gender in United States foreign relations. Entangling Alliances draws on a rich array of sources to trace how war and postwar anxieties about power and national identity have long been projected onto war brides, and how these anxieties translate into public policies, particularly immigration.
— Barbara G. Friedman
A wonderful study of twentieth-century war brides and their changing meanings in American society. Zeiger shows how useful it can be to study the United States and the world through the lens of gender.
— Beth Bailey,author of Americas Army: Making the All-Volunteer Force
Americans ambivalence about their (our) place in the world becomes so crystal clear when, guided here by Zeiger, we take seriously the experiences of women who have married U.S. soldiers. Entangling Alliances reveals the perpetual anxieties of both civilians and officials about the innocence of & our boys, seduction, romance, and & their women. I learned so much from every page of this important book.
— Cynthia Enloe,author of The Curious Feminist
Fascinating and far-reaching, exhaustively researched and grippingly readable, Zeigers account of American & war brides shrewdly links geopolitical affairs to intimate ones, and in so doing provides a novel and revealing angle on American nationalism, racism, and expanding sense of world mission during the twentieth century.
— Nancy F. Cott,author of Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation