Events on the battlefields of the Pacific War were not only outgrowths of technology and tactical doctrine, but also the products of cultural myth and imagination. A neglected aspect of the history of the Marine Corps operation against Imperial Japan has been any close study of how the marines themselves shaped the landscape of the battlefields on which they created new institutional legends.

Based on the author's thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Chicago, 1990.

Mythic images of the Marines before Pearl Harbor -- Creating Marines and a masculine ideal -- Images of the Japanese "other" defined: Guadalcanal and beyond -- "Devil dogs" and "dogfaces": images of the "self" on Peleliu -- Okinawa: technology empowers ideology -- Collapse of the Pacific War images, 1945-1951 -- Rewriting the War.