The Greatest Generation Collection
by Tom Brokaw
List Price:
Our Price: $49.96
You Save: $24.89 (33%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $38.86 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Tom BrokawEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-09-28
ISBN: 0812965213
Publisher: Random House
Summary of The Greatest Generation Collection
"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.
"At a time in their lives when their days and nights should have been filled with innocent adventure, love, and the lessons of the workaday world, they were fighting in the most primitive conditions possible across the bloodied landscape of France, Belgium, Italy, Austria, and the coral islands of the Pacific. They answered the call to save the world from the two most powerful and ruthless military machines ever assembled, instruments of conquest in the hands of fascist maniacs. They faced great odds and a late start, but they did not protest. 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. They married in record numbers and gave birth to another distinctive generation, the Baby Boomers. 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.
"This book, I hope, will in some small way pay tribute to those men and women who have given us the lives we have today--an American family portrait album of the greatest generation."
In this book you'll meet people like Charles Van Gorder, who set up during D-Day a MASH-like medical facility in the middle of the fighting, and then came home to create a clinic and hospital in his hometown. You'll hear George Bush talk about how, as a Navy Air Corps combat pilot, one of his assignments was to read the mail of the enlisted men under him, to be sure no sensitive military information would be compromised. And so, Bush says, "I learned about life." You'll meet Trudy Elion, winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine, one of the many women in this book who found fulfilling careers in the changed society as a result of the war. You'll meet Martha Putney, one of the first black women to serve in the newly formed WACs. And you'll meet the members of the Romeo Club (Retired Old Men Eating Out), friends for life.
Through these and other stories in The Greatest Generation, you'll relive with ordinary men and women, military heroes, famous people of great achievement, and community leaders how these extraordinary times forged the values and provided the training that made a people and a nation great.
From the Hardcover edition.
World War II Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in World War II Books
The Limits of Empireby Robert J. McMahon
Columbia University Press; Published: 1999-02-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $24.42
Price in other shops:
Mussolini's Shadow: The Double Life of Count Galeazzo Cianoby Mr. Ray Moseley
Yale University Press; Published: 2000-02-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $30.00
Price in other shops:
Bat Bomb: World War II's Other Secret Weaponby Jack Couffer
University of Texas Press; Published: 2008-02-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.16
Price in other shops:
Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Polandby Jan T. Gross
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2002-10-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.52
Price in other shops:
They Were Expendableby William Lindsay, White
Harcourt; Published: 1942-01; Hardcover; Book
D-Day: The Battle for Normandyby Antony Beevor
Penguin Audio; Published: 2009-10-13; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $18.65
Price in other shops:
Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XIIby John Cornwell
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2008-04-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.85
Price in other shops:
Maus: A Survivor's Taleby Art Spiegelman
Penguin Books, Limited (UK); Published: 2003-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.15
Price in other shops:
First Lightby Geoffrey Wellum
Penguin Books; Published: 2003-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $39.88
Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941-1945by Andrew Roberts
Harper Perennial; Published: 2010-05-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.40
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Blood Brothersby Elias Chacour, David Hazard
Chosen Books; Published: 2003-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.31
Price in other shops:
Melissa & Doug Underwater 48-Piece Floor PuzzleMelissa & Doug; Melissa & Doug; Release date: 2006-06-12; Toy
Best price: $4.98
Price in other shops:
A Long Way from Home: Growing Up in the American Heartland in the Forties and Fiftiesby Tom Brokaw
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2003-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
The Ultimate Johnny Carson Collection - His Favorite Moments From The Tonight Show (Vols. 1-3) (1962-1992)ST Clair ENT GRP INC; Release date: 2003-10-14; DVD
Best price: $20.99
Price in other shops:
An Album of Memories: Personal Histories from the Greatest Generationby Tom Brokaw
Random House; Published: 2001-05-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.20
Price in other shops:
The Time of Our Lives: A conversation about America; Who we are, where we've been, and where we need to go now, to recapture the American dreamby Tom Brokaw
Random House; Published: 2011-11-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.90
Price in other shops:
The Greatest Generation with Tom Brokaw Boxed SetTimeless Media Group; Release date: 2005-06-07; DVD
Best price: $15.48
Price in other shops:
An Album of Memories: Personal Histories from the Greatest Generationby Tom Brokaw
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2002-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.40
Price in other shops:
The Greatest Generation Speaks: Letters and Reflectionsby Tom Brokaw
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2005-10-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.61
Price in other shops:
The Greatest Generationby Tom Brokaw
Random House; Published: 2004-05-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops: