Description
Book SynopsisIn
Chemical Heroes Andrew Bickford analyzes the US military''s attempts to design performance enhancement technologies and create pharmacological 'supersoldiers' capable of withstanding extreme trauma. Bickford traces the deep history of efforts to biologically fortify and extend the health and lethal power of soldiers from the Cold War era into the twenty-first century, from early adoptions of mandatory immunizations to bio-protective gear, to the development and spread of new performance enhancing drugs during the global War on Terrorism. In his examination of government efforts to alter soldiers'' bodies through new technologies, Bickford invites us to contemplate what constitutes heroism when armor becomes built in, wired in, and even edited into the molecular being of an American soldier. Lurking in the background and dark recesses of all US military enhancement research, Bickford demonstrates, is the desire to preserve US military and imperial power.
Trade Review“In exploring projects fantastical and frightening in their forms of intervention and enhancement, Andrew Bickford offers important insights into not only the US military's efforts to fortify the bodies and minds of its service members but also what it means to go to war on a twenty-first-century global battlefield.” -- Sarah Wagner, author of * What Remains: Bringing America’s Missing Home from the Vietnam War *
“Andrew Bickford presents a mind-blowing array of technological and pharmacological innovations that promise to deliver the next stage of human warriors while raising the possibility that many of these innovations may unleash new nightmares. Drawing out the themes of utopian promises and dystopian realities,
Chemical Heroes makes a significant theoretical contribution to anthropology and critical studies of the military that should be broadly read, discussed, and taught by anthropologists, political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, and others working in peace and conflict studies.” -- David H. Price, author of * Cold War Anthropology: The CIA, the Pentagon, and the Growth of Dual Use Anthropology *
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Chemical Heroes describes decades of efforts by the US military to go beyond armoring soldiers from external attack by remaking soldiers’ bodies in ways that let them remain in combat for ever-longer periods of time....
Chemical Heroes lets readers see into the military’s fantasy world.” -- Richard Lachmann * Social Forces *
"[
Chemical Heroes] is a significant contribution to military studies in anthropology, sociology, and political science, supplemented with tables, diagrams, illustrations, and direct quotations from military documents and research." -- G. B. Osborne * Choice *
“
Chemical Heroes breaks new ground by exploring military innovation as a site of anxious preemption and deadly play, highlighting its contradictions, tensions, and nervous state in the robust tradition of anthropological work on militarization and US empire. The book provides a set of tools that will be valuable to students and scholars alike.” -- Jocelyn Lim Chua * Anthropological Quarterly *
“Those interested in a detailed history of the development of military biomedical interventions will be quite pleased. . . . Scholars of peace and conflict studies, biomedicine, technology, and labor will be well served by Bickford’s detailed work.” -- Jesse Wozniak * Contemporary Sociology *
“Vivid accounts, along with the author’s lucid, unpretentious, and conversational style and wonderful photo illustrations, will make it appealing to undergraduate and graduate students alike. . . . [
Chemical Heroes] will be required reading for anyone interested in the militarization of American life.” -- Roberto J. González * Current Anthropology *
“
Chemical Heroes is an important and deeply researched archive of information regarding the U.S. military’s vision for the future. . . . The book is simultaneously technical and readable and will contribute to critical military studies, science and technology studies, as well as the anthropology of the body.” -- Christopher Webb * Medical Anthropology Quarterly *
Table of ContentsTerms and Abbreviations ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Prologue: Supersoldier Bob Writes Home xvii
Introduction: Chemical Heroes 1
Part I. Thematic Framings
1. "Innovation at the Speed of Change": War, Anticipation, Imagination 37
2. The Superman Solution: The New Man, Superheroes, and the Supersoldier 56
3. Government (T)Issue: Military Medicine, Performance Enhancement, and the Biology of the Soldier 75
Part II. Early Imaginaries of the US Supersolder
4. "Science Will Modernize Him": The Soldier of the Futurearmy 103
5. "A Biological Armor for the Soldier": Idiophylaxis and the Self-Armoring Soldier 111
Part III. Imagining the Modern US Supersoldier
6. "The Force Is With You": An Army of One to the Future Force Warrior 147
7. Molecular Militarization: War, Drugs, and the Structures of Unfeeling 180
8. "Kill-Proofing the Soldier": Inner Armor, Environmental Threats, and the World as Battlefield 216
9. "Catastrophic Success": Back to the Futurarmy 239
10. Natural Cowards, Chemical Heroes 245
Works Cited 259
Index 285
