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Overview
"Shedding light on a misunderstood form of opposition to the Vietnam War, Michael Foley tells the story of draft resistance, the cutting edge of the antiwar movement at the height of the war's escalation. Unlike so-called draft dodgers, who left the country or manipulated deferments, draft resisters openly defied draft laws by burning or turning in their draft cards. Like civil rights activists before them, draft resisters invited prosecution and imprisonment." Draft resisters frequently faced hostility from their fellow citizens, family, friends, teachers, and employers. But they also succeeded in building a community to sustain them. Most important, they forced a government that had previously ignored the antiwar movement into taking their actions seriously. Examining the day-to-day struggle of antiwar organizing carried out by ordinary Americans at the local level, Confronting the War Machine argues for a more complex view of citizenship and patriotism during a time of war.Synopsis
Focusing on the draft resistance movement in Boston in 1967-68, this study argues that these acts of mass civil disobedience turned the tide in the antiwar movement by drawing the Johnson administration into a confrontation with activists who were largely young, middle-class, liberal, and from suburban backgrounds—the core of Johnson's constituency.
New England Quarterly
Impressive . . . Foley drew upon an exceptionally wide range of primary sources. . . . Together with Foley's powerful writing and cogent analysis, this extensive research helps make Confronting the War Machine a vibrant, first-rate scholarly study.
Editorials
Boston Globe
Foley's book, in which well-chosen anecdotes are matched by solid analysis, rings true to a reviewer who was a friend of many of those involved in the resistance movement, as well as an observer of antiwar actions in Boston.New England Quarterly
Impressive . . . Foley drew upon an exceptionally wide range of primary sources. . . . Together with Foley's powerful writing and cogent analysis, this extensive research helps make Confronting the War Machine a vibrant, first-rate scholarly study.Library Journal
Foley (history, Staten Island Coll., CUNY) offers a scholarly investigation of the Boston-area draft resistance movement from 1966 to 1969. He focuses not on draft dodgers but on resisters, whose most dramatic and consequential form of protest was draft-card burning. The book includes stories about unknown resisters as well as famous ones, such as pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock and Yale University Chaplain William Sloane Coffin, both of whom were acquitted on appeal of encouraging young men to resist. The movement splintered in 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King, whose civil rights leadership was the model for the draft resistance. By 1969, the Boston movement had faded but left two important legacies: an alliance with angry servicemen who formed the veterans protest movement and a training ground for the emerging women's movement. Two fine related works are John Hagan's Northern Passage, which follows resisters who moved to Canada, and Gerald Nicosia's Home to War, which chronicles the veteran resistance movement. Strongly recommended for academic collections of peace studies or the Vietnam War era.-Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PAFrom the Publisher
Exhaustively researched, thoughtfully argued, and cogently written, Confronting the War Machine is the best scholarly study of draft resistance during the Vietnam War. (Christian G. Appy, author of Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam)Foley's meticulously researched and well-written study of draft resistance in Boston during the late 1960s describes sympathetically but quite objectively the always interesting and sometimes rather colorful activists who challenged the Selective Service System during the Vietnam War. (Melvin Small, author of Antiwarriors: The Vietnam War and the Battle for America's Hearts and Minds)