"The Good War"

[reasie]

I just finished Studs Terkle's "The Good War".Wow

Comments

[aisb23]

I had to read Terkel's "Working" for class in high school and enjoyed it so much I asked for an got "The Good War" for my birthday just after it came out and was also not disappointed.

Terkel is a very underrated force in American historiography, largely because he relied almost solely on oral history with very little commentary of his own.

[reasie]

We did "Working" as a musical in college, which is largely why I picked up this book on the strength of Terkel's name.

(I was the phone operator.) ;D

[aisb23]

I used to have a recording of the "Working" soundtrack on tape way back in the day. Great songs.

[shapinglight]

Thanks for the book rec. It sounds like a good one. I talked to my own father a little about the war, but his experience was rather atypical. I wish I'd known about my uncle (my mother's cousin), who fought on D-Day, but I didn't even discover that about him until he'd died.

[reasie]

Just so you're prepared, the book is very America-centric.

The war "starts" with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and all.

One interviewer bitterly said that WWII gave America a terribly bad ego boost and he wondered if we would have so willingly gone into Korea and Vietnam if we'd actually experienced some of the horror Europe and Japan did.

I've had frank discussions with my father about Vietnam, but most of his friends, you just don't mention it.

Some day I'd like to have a frank discussion with my mother-in-law about growing up in Vietnam during the conflict.

These personal stories help you understand the gross obscenity that is war - see it, as it was, the major events and minor, in a way a bunch of maps and dates in a history book simply can't.

[shapinglight]

I'm very interested to read the story of the black German. There are always exceptions to every rule.