“This remarkable book attacks the myth of the ’Greatest Generation’ by showing that young Americans went to war in Europe to find sex rather than to sacrifice themselves for Europe’s salvation. It stands as a corrective to all the best-selling celebratory renderings of World War II in the United States over the past quarter century. It will be shocking and controversial.”

Bonnie Smith, Rutgers University

“This clear-eyed examination of what randy American soldiers got up to in France from D-Day through 1946 strips away the sentimentality from the overworked, clichéd portrayal of the Greatest Generation.”

Publishers Weekly

“Carefully, keeping her anger in check, and with wit, deep research, and telling vignettes, Mary Louise Roberts has given us a masterful study of sexual transactions between American GIs and French women in the Second World War. . . . In excavating and analyzing the story, Roberts is superb--asking the right questions, digging for answers, scrupulously considering all possibilities, and openly admitting the unknowns. . . . Roberts’s book is an extremely important contribution to a matter badly neglected, even among anti-war scholars.”

Dissent

“A remarkable study that complicates the view of the liberation of France and casts doubt on the moral character of the vaunted ’greatest generation’of Americans. She vividly depicts the impact of the influx of hundreds of thousands of GIS on French society, especially on French women. . . . A powerful reminder of the dark side of the liberation.″

Foreign Affairs

“Throughout this book the links between sex, the body, national and transnational politics are made plain. While some readers may query the argument that the behaviour of GIs can be conceptualised as the ’growing pains’ of a nation moving into world leadership, many will appreciate this nuanced history of sex, war and power. The sexual behaviour of an army, and the sexual abuse it propagates, are to do with more than the personal choices of select individuals. Looking beyond ’a few bad hats’, as British Army officers are wont to say of abusers, is instructive, not just for a deeper understanding of the complex liberation of France but also of the broader links between military power, sexual dominance and gender relations.”

Times Higher Education

“An excellent example of how attention to gender, sexuality, and race transforms understanding of historical processes.”

Journal of Modern History