Home Front Soldier: The Story of a Gi and His Italian American Family During World War II [Paperback]

Richard Aquila (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 25, 1999

Presents a multi-layered social history of a soldier and his Italian American family during World War II.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"This is one of the richest collections of primary sources I've seen for the study of war and ethnic family. What I like best is the detailed and rhythmic evocation the letters offer of everyday life during wartime. The reader gets to know the writer of the letters quite well, and develops a very good sense of the family dynamics of an extended Italian American family. I'm a social historian, interested in ethnicity, gender, and family, and I found it a totally gripping read. Once I started reading it, I didn't stop. I read it at one sitting!" - Donna Gabaccia, author of From Sicily to Elizabeth Street: Housing and Social Change among Italian Immigrants, 1880-1930

While other collections of letters and memoirs from World War II have dealt with upper-class individuals, officers, or college-educated people, Home Front Soldier is the first to explore the life of an ordinary, working-class, first-generation American. This gripping story of a young soldier, Philip L. Aquila, and his Italian American family during the Second World War includes a detailed introduction, providing historical context to the more than 500 letters that this sergeant wrote to his family back home in Buffalo, New York.

Like an epistolary novel, the letters offer an intimate personal history of how a large immigrant family with four sons in the military coped with the daily traumas of World War II. Each of the major and minor plots relates to larger questions in American social history of the 1930s and 1940s, offering fresh insights about family history, gender relations, ethnic and immigration history, and everyday life on the home front. The book also fills a gap in military history by providing detailed information about soldiers stationed in the United States during the war.

"This book provides a fascinating glimpse at the impact of World War II on people at home. It is a microcosmic study of the frustrations of serving in the military, and of trying to deal with family issues while performing military duties. The book gives us a vivid sense of Phil Aquila, a working class Italian American who wanted to do his part for the country but sometimes found it was not as easy as it seemed.

"Aquila is telling a personal story-the story of his father-but it has a far more universal significance. His splendid introduction provides us with the larger context of ethnic tensions, gender patterns, and the general frustrations of working class life through the experience of one family in America. It could stand by itself as a capsule assessment of the impact of the war, and is a valuable prologue for the fascinating letters that follow. All of this is important social history." - Allan M. Winkler, Miami University of Ohio --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Richard Aquila is Professor of History and Director of the American Studies Program at Ball State University. He is the author of The Iroquois Restoration; Wanted Dead or Alive: The American West; and That Old Time Rock and Roll.

Product Details

• Paperback: 302 pages
• Publisher: State University of New York Press (March 25, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0791440761
• ISBN-13: 978-0791440766
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #940,950 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What A Book, April 19, 2002

By 

Elizabeth R. Badgley (Akron, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Home Front Soldier: The Story of a Gi and His Italian American Family During World War II (Hardcover)

I am one of the many cousins of Richard Aquila, although I don't know him very well. I am one of Francie's daughter's. I have to say that I learned more about my grand parents and uncles from this book than my parents ever told me. I can't even begin to imagine what it had to be like to pack up the family every summer and bring them to the farms to pick crops for the farmers. I never knew how brave my grandmother was as she fought cancer while four of her sons were in the armed services. It seemed that she waited for all of them to come home safe before she let the disease take her. My grandmother died well before I was born, and my grandfather died when I was a small child, so my memeories of him are very faint. I couldn't put this book down after I started it. I wanted it to go on forever to learn more about my family. I think everyone will be taken in by the struggles endured by this family even if you're not a member of the Aquila clan.