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The American Home Front: 1941-1942 Hardcover – April 11, 2006

by Alistair Cooke (Author)

95 customer reviews

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From the famous BBC correspondent and television host comes a remarkably insightful and detailed firsthand portrait of America during the early days of World War II. Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Alistair Cooke, a newly naturalized American citizen, set out to see his country as it was undergoing monumental change. Cooke traveled small highways, with their advertising signs and their local topography, in an age before the interstate highway system.

In The American Home Front — a fascinating artifact, a charming travelogue, and a sharp portrait of America — Cooke chronicles the regional glories he encounters and the reactions of the citizens to war, from indifference to grief, from opportunism to resilience under military threat. Filled with touching personal stories of the effects of war, from a Japanese family facing internment that tries to sell Cooke their car, to the experiences of the unemployed relocating in hopes of jobs in a gunpowder factory, The American Home Front is the work of an experienced, talented journalist; it is intelligent, touching, and funny.

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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Composed during World War II for British readers, whom the late cultural commentator Cooke felt had heard "rather too much of Washington and New York," this travelogue of America was never published--until now; it proves an interesting eyewitness record on several levels. It recalls transcontinental travel in the pre-interstate highway era, and with greater depth, social problems that Cooke detected beneath the win-the-war exhortations he encountered from coast to coast. Driving out of Washington in February 1942, Cooke headed south, observing the Jim Crow regime en route to Gulf Coast ports bursting with military construction and a housing crisis. He then took a train to California, where he was disgusted by the internment of Japanese Americans, then in full swing. Circling back east in a car via Seattle, Denver, Kansas City, Minneapolis and St. Paul, and the Great Lakes cities, Cooke discovered their war industries and ethnographic compositions. Perceptive about the moment, prescient about postwar possibilities, Cooke's tour makes for profitable reading. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

A New York Times Bestseller

“An unexpected and welcome discovery in a time capsule. . . . even after all these years, and all those countless previous books about the wartime home front, Cooke has interesting things to tell us.” –Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post

“He filed lated, but boy, did he get it right.” –William Grimes, The New York Times

“The American Home Front teems with Cooke’s eloquence and insight…. His whole book is a tale told with easy elegance.” –Harry Levins, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Here are the antecedents of who we are now, grasped with a clarity and foresight that is all the more stunning for having been hidden away in a closet for nearly sixty years.” –Verlyn Klinkenborg, Bookforum

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product details

Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; First Edition edition (April 11, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0871139391
ISBN-13: 978-0871139399
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 95 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,100,363 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #9871 in Books > History > Military > World War II
- #48868 in Books > History > Americas > United States

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Voice from the past

ByKindle Customeron May 21, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Alistair Cooke has once again touched my life even after his passing. He saw America through clear eyes on the homefront at the beginning of WW II. My parents, both from the Midwest, were living in California, and their stories are told and retold by this British-born recorder of the multi-faceted country the US in 1941-42. For those of us born in the Baby Boom generation, he is able to voice the fear I have heard from older people all around the country. Can American win this war? How will we do it? After the questions were asked in California, my father found himself in a completely secret new technology called radar which his team used widely across the vast Pacific. My mother, having on small child, realized she could help turn out the very product that would "Bring the Boys Home," so she became a Lockheed riveter. The old music of the day played around my head as I read this book for both information and for a glimpse back. "We'll Remember Pearl Harbor", "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" played well with this author's ability to see, process, and feed back to us over 70 years later. My father, at 98, still dreams the War in the Pacific through he says each night. Alistair Cook plays those early years back for all of us.

0Comment 11 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

The American home front during WWII, miracles and warts

ByPhredon September 3, 2012

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Long after Alexis De Toqueville, and well before Andrei Codrescu, the one European who seemed to best understand America was Alistair Cooke. He first came to America on a student fellowship and in 1935 returned as a journalist for the BBC.

The letters and commentary represented in this book cover a sponsored tour and later travels of the US during World War II. It should be understood that at least one purpose for every piece in this collection is propaganda. He was charged with explaining to Britons who were under direct bombardment by the Germans what Americans were living through as part of their contribution to the war effort. Propaganda this may be, but it is also fair to point out that Mr. Cooke's love of America was sincerely heart felt.

British born Alistair Cooke would earn American Citizenship on Dec. 1, 1941.

In these letters we get to see at very close hand what the day to day life in war time America looked like. I do not think many Americans have any appreciation for how frequently American towns were re-energized, rebuilt and repopulated by the war effort. Also unknown to most American is the number of activities and work practices of American were re ordered by Government direction.

From farming techniques, to mine safety government provided leadership and direction to a degree no one of any contemporary political preference would credit. What seems to be the case is that industry, agriculture and medicine was stuck in a rut based on how things had always been done. Government agents, often representing the most advanced research and often having control of money and resources could direct the adoption of more efficient and desirable practices. Ultimately, it would be American ingenuity, American labor and American corporate leadership that made the miracle of American wartime production possible. This was also the most centralized, federal control of production that America would ever experience.

In these letters we get an outsiders clear and clearly affectionate view of wartime America. Mr. Cook would observe and comment on: small town main streets; the tent camps that provided homes for many thousands of relocated factory workers; and the previously unimaginably, huge production facilities would be built, often from dusty bare fields, Mr. Cooke gives us a sense of how Americans became the masters of wartime production.

This is a bare overview of the book. Mr. Cook can make sharp critical judgments, not all of them warmly congratulatory. This was Jim Crow America and the time of the Japanese internment camps. Remember too that he was driving before super highways or even the Eisenhower highways. He was in a vehicle not well adapted to long rough trips. At times his enthusiasm for his task is beaten down by the shear weariness of driving across a huge country.

I deeply enjoyed this book. There may be better histories of the American home front in WWII. This is not a history. This is a personal view of America as written by a brand new American, speaking to his former countrymen.

I read the Kindle edition. I do not understand why this edition should cost nearly the same as the paperback. High eBook prices continue to limit my Kindle collection.

0Comment 27 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

An Early WWII Homefront Perspective

ByCatManon January 5, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is a good look at the American Homefront in the early days of WWII. Cooke traveled the entire country writing down each regions perspective on the war and how they were dealing with it. He captures the different moods of the many regions. The book can get a little tedious and a bit repetitive. I suspect if Cooke had edited this book soon after this journey across the country it would have been condensed a little more and re-worded in spots. Still a good book to get a good sense of how America was feeling at th eonset of war in late 1941 until the beginning of 1943.

0Comment 5 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

I'm glad I read this book

ByJ. Harshbargeron July 30, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book gives an interesting look at life in the early days of World War II, from the eyes of a journalist traveling the country. It answers some of the questions I wish I had asked my parents. For the parts of the country that I'm familiar with, it was a vivid contrast between then and now. In other places, not much has changed in all this time.

I'm glad I read this book, because it gives me insight into the lives that came before us, and the way they lived. We are so spoiled!

0Comment 5 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

USA RALLIED TO THE CAUSE, FINALLY!

ByJ. Blakeon August 23, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Both personal memories and official accounts of World War I convinced Americans that their nation should avoid involvement in World War II but public opinion flipped overnight after the Pearl Harbor debacle. Though the United States became the arsenal of democracy within eighteen months, the conversion from producing consumer goods to manufacturing military supplies was more haphazard than historical accounts often suggest.

Alistair Cooke’s eye witness account, The American Home Front 1941-1942, documents uncertainty and confusion as well as the accomplishments of these times. Cooke traveled most of the 48 states and visited farms, factories, coffee shops and relocation camps to gauge public perceptions of the war effort. Though Cooke’s book was ready for publication by war’s end, American reading tastes had moved on to other preoccupations so six decades passed before the book saw the light of day.

Reading Cooke’s account is like standing in the wings as college undergraduates attempt to follow a classmate’s direction while rehearsing King Lear; the process is often inefficient but nevertheless the production eventually is impressive.

For half of the twentieth century, Alistair Cooke offered cultural bridges between the USA and UK. He was the erudite television host of Omnibus in the 1950s and Masterpiece Theater 1970-1992. Both nations are fortunate that this early attempt at bridge building finally became available 2006.