The Greatest Generation [J0444]

1998 HCDJ in Gift-Worthy condition. "In the spring of 1984, I went to the northwest of France, to Normandy, to prepare an NBC documentary on the fortieth anniversary of D-Day, the massive and daring Allied invasion of Europe that marked the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. There, I underwent a life-changing experience. As I walked the beaches with the American veterans who had returned for this anniversary, men in their sixties and seventies, and listened to their stories, I was deeply moved and profoundly grateful for all they had done. Ten years later, I returned to Normandy for the fiftieth anniversary of the invasion, and by then I had come to understand what this generation of Americans meant to history. It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced."

In this superb book, Tom Brokaw goes out into America, to tell through the stories of individual men and women the story of a generation, America's citizen heroes and heroines who came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America. This generation was united not only by a common purpose, but also by common values--duty, honor, economy, courage, service, love of family and country, and, above all, responsibility for oneself. In this book, you will meet people whose everyday lives reveal how a generation persevered through war, and were trained by it, and then went on to create interesting and useful lives and the America we have today.

They succeeded on every front. They won the war; they saved the world. They came home to joyous and short-lived celebrations and immediately began the task of rebuilding their lives and the world they wanted. A grateful nation made it possible for more of them to attend college than any society had ever educated, anywhere. They gave the world new science, literature, art, industry, and economic strength unparalleled in the long curve of history. As they now reach the twilight of their adventurous and productive lives, they remain, for the most part, exceptionally modest. They have so many stories to tell, stories that in many cases they have never told before, because in a deep sense they didn't think that what they were doing was that special, because everyone else was doing it too.

From recent-ish Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "A worthwhile read - Brokaw is an excellent writer, the book is well researched, and the stories undeniably compelling."; "A remarkable study of the 'ordinary' men and women who fought WWII and the went back to their lives to continue where they left off. A book that should be in everyone's library."; "Each chapter is a different profile of someone from the Greatest Generation and how the big events shaped who they were. Anyone from an ordinary guy who served in the Pacific and then came home to be a successful insurance guy with a family to famous figures recognized by society. There was a section highlighting various ways women contributed during the war and what they ended up doing once all the men came back. Another portion brought issues of discrimination into the conversation. Brokaw has made an obvious effort to show a wide range of backgrounds and lives lived."