29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
informative book, May 19, 2006
This review is from: The American Home Front: 1941-1942 (Hardcover)
Anybody who is a World War II buff should read this book. Cooke's writing style is refreshing. His observations are worth noting. Whether he is describing what the day was like on December 7th or casually chatting with soldiers on weekend leave at a cafe, you can appreciate his style. He puts his observations in context and does not bore the reader with endless details and minor observations. Reading this book gives you a true sense of the American people in the early years of the war. Also his observations on race and interaction with African Americans and Japanese internees is eye opening.
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27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
From sea to shining sea, June 3, 2006
This review is from: The American Home Front: 1941-1942 (Hardcover)
As one of countless Americans who remember Alistair Cooke as the voice of "Masterpiece Theatre" it's refreshing to know, professionally, from whence he came. His recollections (from his role as the BBC's originator of "Letter from America" and gathered in "The American Home Front") tell us of a younger Cooke in his quest to find out how Americans viewed the Second World War during its first year. His book is a masterpiece, indeed.
In early 1942, the author set out from Washington D.C. and headed south and west. Some months later he finished his journey in New York and what he witnessed on his trip around the United States is a reader's delight. I'm struck by one thing at first....our pictorial history of the Second World War is largely viewed through black and white photos and newsreels. Alistair Cooke's commentary immediately adds color. One suspects that Cooke had not even remotely traveled around America when he set off and his trip must have been awe-inspiring for this young British reporter who had recently become an American citizen. He speaks of the extreme poverty of the south and its basic, rural distance from the war but as he moves west he encounters oil in Texas, pleasant country in Arizona and a sudden self-immersion into war efforts as he reaches California.
Cooke proceeds north through Oregon and Washington, noting its beautiful, tall fir trees but also a disassociation by people of the northwest with their California cousins. He circles back east via Montana, Wyoming and Kansas and seems to be taken by the fertile fields of the American midwest. For these citizens the war is more remote, but no less significant. Cooke relates wonderful tidbits of information. Landlocked Iowa, for instance, sent more men to the U.S. Navy than any other state per capita. Along the way, he not only gives us his colorful snapshots of ordinary people going about their business in extraordinary times, but he also gives a unique gift of writing about the sounds and smells of each place. All of this done, mind you, without much more than a whiff of humor, addressed buttoned-up, English style.
How comparable are his findings of certain subjects with regard to today! Texans in 1942 speak bewilderingly about gas rationing when one interviewee talks of oil flowing as never before. Any reader wanting to be a little more enlightened about current Mexican immigration should read his passages with regard to such. Yet there are differences, too. He takes note of the solidly Democratic south and the rock-ribbed Republicans of Vermont. How some things change!
What makes this book so unusual is that I've never read anything like it before. Had it been chronicled by an American, certain prejudices would surely have been exposed. While Cooke keeps a jaundiced reporter's eye on his work as his trek continues, he nonetheless is fast becoming an American patriot, as witnessed in his "envoi" which completes the book.
"The American Home Front" is history told from a vantage point not found in schoolbooks and it is written as well by a supreme diarist. Although we know much more about how the war ended, Alistair Cooke's contribution is his descriptions of events and the feelings of Americans at the beginning of the war. He has done so in a magnificent way.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great content, but Audio CDs are poorly indexed and difficult to use., July 6, 2006
The CDs in the 11-disk audio book set do not have chapter names. Every CD is inexplicably divided into 99 tracks, each averaging about 45 seconds in length. If your listening is interrupted, it's a real chore to get back to where you were (even if you do remember what track you were listening to, you'll have to push your player's advance button over and over and over again to get to where you were). Of course it's also impossible to tell where one chapter ends and the next begins. This wouldn't have been so bad if the CD packaging had any index or track listing, but it doesn't even list chapter names. It really seems that this set was thrown together by someone who doesn't have any understanding of how people use audio books. That said, the content is very interesting, but the audiobook can be frustrating at times.
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