Napalm, an American Biography

Saturday, January 5, 2013
La Galerie 3 (New Orleans Marriott)
Robert Neer, Columbia University
This poster presents research from my forthcoming book on the history of napalm, scheduled to be published by Harvard University Press in 2013. This will be the first comprehensive history of napalm, from its invention in 1942 at Harvard to President Barack Obama’s signature on 21 January 2009 of the first U.S. treaty to limit its use. The book is based on my June 2011 Columbia U.S. History Ph.D. dissertation supervised by professor Kenneth Jackson and advised by professor Herbert Sloan. My goal is to present my research and elicit suggestions for future investigations or developments of the subject matter.

A poster format is particularly advantageous for this material because I have assembled an extensive collection of images and video materials to illustrate various aspects of napalm’s story, from photographs of the first test explosions of napalm bombs on the Harvard College soccer field on 4 July 1942, to the first magazine images of napalm's impact on civilians during the Vietnam War (pictures so powerful they prompted Martin Luther King to take a decisive stand against the war, among other consequences), to screen shots from YouTube and Facebook.

My presentation will discuss napalm’s creation through a secret war research partnership between the U.S. government and Harvard University in the early 1940s; deployment in both Europe and the Pacific, culminating with the firebombing of Japan’s major cities in 1945; extensive use during the Korean War, and many other conflicts; and transformation in public opinion from a marvel to a monster routinely cited by commentators as an icon of savage cruelty. I trace this change in public opinion to media coverage during the Vietnam War that raised awareness of the weapon’s effects on civilians; protests against the war and the Dow Chemical Corporation that started in 1965; U.S. defeat in Vietnam; commentary by opinion makers after the war; rise of a global popular culture linked by electronic media; changes in international law; and development of alternative weapons. I conclude that napalm’s history, rooted in the U.S. but global in its scope, highlights the development of worldwide communications and popular culture after World War II, the changing significance of civilian casualties in war, an increasing ability of social movements and international law to define social norms, and the power of global public opinion.

See more of: Poster Session, Part 2
See more of: AHA Sessions