The War in Italy

At Taki's Magazine, my new column continues my intermittent series on the roots of postwar America. 

... For example, the fight against the Japanese furnished California with a national epic. After the war, the Golden State filled up with ex-servicemen who had passed through California in 1942-1945 and vowed that if they made it back alive, they were going to raise a family in the sunshine. They brought back from Hawaii not just a comic penchant for Tiki torches, but, more lastingly, for board-riding—first surfing and then skateboarding, laying the foundation for X Games culture. 

If the War in the Pacific gave Americans more of a yen for the sun, the now largely forgotten War in Italy (1943-45) set off a craze for all things Italian—such as dining, movies, and singing—that improved postwar American nightlife.

Read the whole thing there.