![]() America's trouble spots seem to erupt in a recurring pattern, with current debate echoing many of the points Smedley Butler made a half century ago. As the author delves into the particulars of Butler's Banana War campaigns, we succumb to a sense of déjà vu. Perhaps the most striking lesson of this biography is the continuity of U.S. It is marked by balance (the biographee offers ample opportunity for partisan diversion) and attention to a social and political context which ranged from the high Victorian age to the onset of World War II. ![]() The result is a thoughtful and well-written narrative of Butler's career as a marine and a dissenter. What, then, to make of Butler and his career? reviews 155 In preparing Maverick Marine, Hans Schmidt enjoyed the cooperation of Butler's family, access to his papers, interviews with associates, and worked diligently in a variety of archives. Clearly, not the sort one would expect to support Vito Marcantonio, share lecture platforms with Communist Party speakers, vote for Norman Thomas, and denounce the use of troops as strikebreakers. Not only did Butler deviate from the expectations of his faith and class in choosing a military career, but he embraced the roughneck faction of the Corps, those who rejected the emerging staff hierarchy and professionalization in favor of anti-intellectualism and rough expedients in the field. He was, in fact, instrumental in obtaining Smedley's commission (despite family misgivings) as a sixteen-year-old second lieutenant in the war with Spain. His father represented the family's Pennsylvania district in Congress for several decades. Scion of a venerable and distinguished Quaker family, he enjoyed the advantages of a genteel Victorian upbringing. He sprang from a background strikingly different from most professional soldiers. Those years encompassed the "Banana Wars," a squalid parade of interventions in Latin America and China in which Butler served (in his own words) as "a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers." Butler's apostasy led him into a postretirement career as a publicist for left wing causes, but it was not the only characteristic that set him apart from his colleagues. Winner of two Congressional Medals of Honor, he began his career with the SpanishAmerican War and participated in every campaign of consequence until his retirement. Major General Smedley Darlington Butler achieved mythic status as a "marine's marine" during his years of service to the American Imperium from 1898 to 1931. Consciously or not, he was following the example of another highly decorated marine general who a generation earlier had demurred even more strongly to American imperialism. Shoup's dissent, while surprising to many, was not without precedent. During the Vietnam War, retired marine General David Shoup drew public attention with his sharp attacks on U.S. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1987. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History. Reviews Hans Schmidt, Maverick Marine: General Smedley D. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
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