Abstract
In the minds of many, the United States is a nation that has been on an incessant and indelible march toward a fully inclusive democracy—toward a post-racial society that is equal and open to all. In Divisions: A New History of Racism and Resistance in America’s World War II Military, historian Thomas A. Guglielmo undermines this idealistic narrative by highlighting “the call and response of . . . racism and resistance” (p. 14) in the U.S. military in and around the second World War. He details the wartime military’s role in making and remaking as well as challenging and disrupting systems of racial classification and the racial hierarchies they evoke; he paints the picture of a society and military establishment fraught not with racism, but rather with racisms that differ by time, place, and the groups they target; and he underscores the acts of resistance and defiance that were borne of these classification systems, racial hierarchies, and varied forms of racism. While the book may lack the systematic analysis of data and explicit application of theory sociologists often look for, it is rich with detailed examples, it is clearly and consistently informed by sociological ideas and reasoning, and it presents compelling insights about the interconnected actions that affect and are affected by racial attitudes and racist systems. In result, Divisions is both accessible to a broad audience and sociologically insightful.
From the outset, the sociological nature of the author’s treatment of the topic and evidence is unmistakable. Calling on the title of the book, the author defines division not as a condition or a state-of-affairs, as one might be wont to do, but rather as “acts—individual, collective, or institutional, conscious or unconscious, implicit or explicit, formal or informal, symbolic, physical, affective, or behavioral—that distinguish some persons from other persons. Acts of distinction . . . [that are] at once both inclusionary and exclusionary” (p. 11, emphasis in original). In Part I of the book, the author details acts of racial division and their inclusionary and exclusionary consequences that both affected and were affected by recruitment and enlistment into the WWII era military. He then proceeds to detail the presence, causes, and consequences of and responses to racial divisions as they pertain to unit assignment (Part II), military training (Part IV), and experiences and conditions in war (Part V). In each of these Parts of the book, the author astutely compares and contrasts a generally persistent Black-White divide with an ever-shifting White-non-White divide (focusing primarily on Japanese Americans and their complex relationship with whiteness in the WWII era). Herein lies another important sociological consideration taken up by the author: throughout the book, Guglielmo identifies both the malleability of racial classifications and a semi-permanent and stubbornly defended Black-White divide. Importantly, he focuses not on these racial classifications themselves, but rather on acts that contribute to the naturalization, institutionalization, negotiation, and disruption of them. In the process, he is careful to afford relevant attention to their consequences; he pays close attention to who is advantaged by them, who is disadvantaged, under what conditions, why, and with what consequences. Moreover, the author details when, why, where, and how these classification systems spurred acts of resistance, and when, where, why, and how those defiant activities succeeded or failed (however partial). In this way, Guglielmo demonstrates that racial attitudes and beliefs are always undergoing a process of (re)production, he demonstrates that racist systems are always being actively (re)constructed, and he lends unique insights into the U.S. military’s contributions to these processes in the early- to mid-twentieth century.
Though Divisions focuses on a social institution—the military—the author’s claims are not limited to macro-level considerations alone. Whereas macro-level concerns are prominently featured throughout the book—including, for example, observations of military and public policy, military structure and organization, and the governmental system that affects them—Guglielmo considers the dynamic interconnectedness of these macro level phenomena with meso-level decisions, practices and interactions, micro-level attitudes and behaviors, and even international relations at the global level of analysis. Importantly, these macro, meso, micro, and global matters are not treated as separate and distinct in the book, but rather as interrelated dynamics that allowed for formal, informal, physical, social and behavioral, and symbolic acts of division that affected the lives, attitudes, interactions, experiences, and opportunities of service members and led some to engage in acts of defiance and resistance. The author concludes by suggesting that these acts of division and resistance “fundamentally shaped postwar America in numerous, complicated, and too often forgotten ways” (p. 371). For contemporary race scholars whose work is historically informed—most notably for those whose interests center on social constructions of race and racist systems—the acts outlined in Divisions are consequential and relevant.
Throughout Divisions, Guglielmo provides not only a detailed description of but also an explanation for the acts and practices he observes. These explanations often include references to and applications of sociological concepts and ideas. In seeking to understand racial classification systems, for example, the author explicitly identifies them as “social constructions” and comments on the processes through which they become “naturalized” and “institutionalized.” Still other, related sociological concepts are called upon throughout the book with reference to, for example, “schema,” “framing,” and “path dependency.” Though the author does not delve into the rich theoretical traditions in which these concepts are grounded, their presence in the author’s interpretations demonstrates the sociologically informed reasoning he offers in this historical work. The observations and explanations presented in Divisions are thus relevant and informative for sociologists who wish to better understand the processes and practices that characterize social constructions of race, the racist systems and institutions that are borne of these constructions, the acts of resistance they provoke, and responses to such acts of resistance. Divisions is as much a “A New History of Racism and Resistance in America’s World War II Military” (to borrow from the book’s title) as it is a detailing of early- to mid-twentieth-century social constructions of race and their consequences.
