Customer Reviews

"Daddy's Gone to War": The Second World War in the Lives of America's Children

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This book is an excellent interdisciplinary study of World War II and its effects on American children of that time. Tuttle uses methodologies from history, American Studies, psychology, and sociology (among others) to depict the fears, comforts, and perceptions of homefront children during the war. He suggests, among other things, that within the war generation are two "cohorts," each one based on having experienced different events at different courses during the war. How children experienced the war, Tuttle argues, affected their later lives, outlooks, and relationships with others. Although it's very much a "scholarly" work, with plenty of references to historical, psychological, and sociological theory, I found this to be a very interesting--and for Tuttle--personal book.

For all of Mr. Tuttle's scholarly efforts he consistently referred to Franklin D. Roosevelt's "date that will live in infamy" as the "day of infamy." This book would have been far more interesting if more first person narratives had been included.