Dan Gediman

This is an Audible Original production; there is no previous book. It uses oral histories including contemporaneous materials to look at what life was like at home during World War II.

Long ago when I was young, World War II was truly a living memory; not only did we study it in school, but our parents had lived through it, often served in the war. We knew about Pearl Harbor, and we knew about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Depending on where we lived, even if we were not Jewish we were likely to show more know people who had sadly truncated families because so many relatives had died in the death camps. We knew the names of the major battles in Europe and in the Pacific.

This isn't about that. This is about what happened at home, in the US, something rarely covered in any meaningful way in our school classes, and apparently much less interesting for our parents and aunts and uncles to talk about.

This is about rationing and paper drives and saving cooking oil. It's about women being pressured both to enter the work force in ways they had never been allowed to before, and at the same time being pressured to be soft and beautiful and willing, for the soldiers going off to war. It's about African-Americans (though Negro was still the preferred term at the time) seeking both the right to fight for their country on equal footing with white Americans, and to be treated equally when they did serve. It's about Japanese-Americans being rounded up into camps as "enemy aliens," and about young Japanese-American men forming the most decorated combat unit of the war.

It's about how disruptive all this was to social life in America, as people were suddenly working and living alongside races and ethnicities they'd never had much or even any contact with before.

It's told in the voices of the people who lived it. Some were recorded for the still new and exciting radio, during the war. Others were recorded after the war, even decades later, for a variety of oral history projects. I think everyone will learn something from this. I've always been a history buff, and I thought I knew this history pretty well, but many details were new, and some things were completely new. Antisemitism, the internment of Japanese-Americans, the much less comprehensive round-up of Italian-Americans, the German-American Bund--I'd encountered all of those.

Mexican-Americans and the "zoot suit riots" were completely new to me. I'd encountered the term "zoot suit" and the idea that it was associated with a relatively wild lifestyle, a forties version of the Beat Generation or the 1920s flappers. In fact it wasn't that different, except for its timing in the war, meaning that people came in contact with it who could have sneered at it from a distance in other eras.

The zoot suit was style of men's suit favored by, initially Mexican-Americans, and it became associated with their perceived wild lifestyle. They were in fact working hard in war factories like their contemporaries, but the war's movement of people to where war work was necessary, along with all ethnicities enlisting and mixing in the military meant that relatively straight-laced, Protestant, midwestern whites came in contact with this Latin, Roman Catholic culture that was much more expressive, looser, culture, more oriented to dance, music, and colorful clothing as well as activities in their leisure time. That contact, probably predictably, didn't go well. There were riots. I found it fascinating--especially as my own Roman Catholic, half-Sicilian background finds the zoot suit culture as described a lot more normal than midwestern Protestants who thought dancing was sinful.

There's also extended discussion of returning soldiers and the effects of what we now call PTSD, which was barely understood at the time.

Some of this is pretty explicit, and it can be even more startling because so much of it is in the voices of those who lived through it, speaking at the time--on a radio program intended to send the views of ordinary Americans to President Roosevelt, for instance--much of it is not filtered through later sensitivities. Be prepared to hear how people really felt then, not just how they remembered it later.

Highly recommended.

This program was available for download free "for a short time" when I got it from Audible. show less

The story of World War II has been well-mined by historians over the past 80 years. It’s hard to provide a new angle on the action, yet this series of podcasts does just that. While many histories focus on stories of foreign battles, this history tells America’s domestic challenges around the war. It does so using audio footage of interviews from people at the time. While I’ve heard some of these narratives before (e.g., women undertaking industrial work), many of the episodes covered show more ground that was new to me. Compiling these stories concisely in one place will be an asset to readers in future years.

This series of podcasts gather original source information from disperse archives, each with its own angle on the war. Thus, it can say, through primary sources, what it was like to live in America during World War II. Many accounts of domestic life are whitewashed with a strong, but false sense of united patriotism. This account avoids that by sharing the anxiety and hardships firsthand in observers’ very words and voices.

America transformed because of the war. Racism and sexism were exposed. The infrastructure of scientific research changed. American isolationism, prevalent after World War I, receded. The military grew dramatically and remained large even after V-J Day. Each of these storylines is handled with care using first-hand accounts. Yes, you’re able to hear the voices of people in that time expressing their thoughts on then-current events.

Again, a broad take on the domestic narratives of the war is one that has not been well explored in prior accounts. Each episode’s main storylines has been explored, but this rendition weaves them together and preserves them for future generations. This is a real contribution to American historians, to students learning about the war, to writers of historical fiction, and to curious Americans. The first-hand accounts convey a sense of uncertainty that is often not shared when telling the story of World War II. They show how our society has grown because of the war and how we risk relapse if these lessons in the future aren’t conserved. show less

I received this book as a college graduation present from my beloved English department, and they each signed my copy with a personal note. Now that I've finally gotten to it on my shelf, I have to admit I like the *idea* of a "This I Believe" essay more than the actual style of the essay. Personally, I would have liked a word count of about 1000, to further develop the story or ideas present in the essay. And when it comes to credo-type or advice-giving essays, there is no comparison to the show more raw honesty and radical empathy of Dear Sugar. But I did really like "Always go to the funeral" by Deidre Sullivan. show less

What a mixed bag this was! With contributors like Albert Einstein, Anthony Fauci (before he became the face of COVID-19), and Bill Gates, I expected a lot of insightful and thought-provoking content—and the book delivered, but not always consistently.

Let's start with the highlights. My favorite essay, "Be Cool to the Pizza Dude" by Sarah Adams, set the bar high. It was witty, relatable, and genuinely laugh-out-loud funny. Other gems included "There Is No Such Thing As Too Much Barbecue" by show more Jason Sheehan, which made me smile, and "The Power of Love To Transform And Heal" by Jackie Lantry, which made me tear up.

One of the best things about this book is its format. Each essay is just 1-2 pages long, making it easy to read "just one more" before bed or during a quick break. The essays are short enough to pick up the book, read a couple, and put it down without feeling like you're losing continuity.

However, not all essays hit the mark. Some felt over the top, others were overly religious, and a few were exceedingly patriotic. I found myself rolling my eyes at the overly dramatic ones and skimming through the more banal, cookie-cutter essays. It's clear that even when given the chance to share their deepest beliefs, not all contributors had something truly profound or original to say.

Despite these inconsistencies, every essay managed to be thought-provoking in its own way. I appreciated the variety of voices and the glimpses into different worldviews, even if some were a bit basic. The book did start to feel repetitive after a while, so I recommend spacing out your reading over a period of time to avoid getting bored.

Overall, this is an intriguing collection of personal philosophies that range from deeply moving to just plain ordinary. It's perfect for dipping in and out of, with enough standout essays to make it worth the read. Just be prepared for a few duds along the way. show less