Reporting World War II Part Two: American Journalism 1944-46 - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1883011051 ISBN 13: 9781883011055

Publisher: Library of America, 1995

Synopsis

This Library of America volume (along with its companion) evokes an extraordinary period in American history—and in American journalism. Martha Gellhorn, Ernie Pyle, John Hersey, A.J. Liebling, Edward R. Murrow, Janet Flanner: in a time when public perceptions were shaped mainly by the written word, correspondents like these were often as influential as politicians and as celebrated as movie stars.

This second volume traces the final eighteen months of the war: the campaign in Italy and the Southwest Pacific, the Normandy invasion, the island battles from Saipan to Iwo Jima, the liberation of Paris, the Battle of the Bulge, the fall of Berlin, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here are Ernie Pyle bearing witness to war in the infantrymen’s foxholes; A.J. Liebling on D-Day; Robert Sherrod and Tom Lea landing with Marines and registering the horrors of Pacific Island warfare; Martha Gellhorn and Edward R. Murrow indelibly reporting on the liberation of Dachau and Buchenwald. Here too are two great book-length works, included in full: Bill Mauldin’s Up Front, the classic evocation of war from the GI’s point of view, complete with his famous cartoons, and Hiroshima, John Hersey’s compassionate account of the first atomic bombing and its aftermath.

Writers who covered the home front are included as well: S.J. Perelman on the absurdities of wartime advertising, James Agee on the impact of wartime newsreels, E.B. White on the United Nations conference in San Francisco. Here too are writers on aspects of the war still often neglected: Vincent Tubbs and Bill Davidson on the combat role of African-American soldiers; Susan B. Anthony II on working in the Navy Yard; I.F. Stone protesting U.S. government inaction in the face of Nazi genocide.

This volume contains a detailed chronology of the war, historical maps, biographical profiles of the journalists, explanatory notes, a glossary of military terms, and an index. Also included are thirty-two pages of photographs of the correspondents, many from private collections and never seen before.

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

About this title

About the Author:

Samuel Hynes is Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature emeritus at Princeton University. He was a Marines Corps pilot in World War II and the Korean Conflict.

Anne Matthews has served on the faculties of Princeton, Columbia, and New York University, and she was the first woman to direct the Princeton Writing Program.

Nancy Caldwell Sorel (1934-2015) was the author of The Women Who Wrote the War, among other works.

Roger J. Spiller is George C. Marshall Distinguished Professor of Military History (retired) at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

From Library Journal:

With 1995 marking the 50th anniversary of the close of World War II, countless volumes are being produced by numerous publishers. This duo from the venerable Library of America takes a different tack as it approaches the war through the eyes of the reporters and photographers who first delivered its harsh images from the front lines of the jungles, beachheads, and ravaged villages to the American public, often at great personal peril. The text is an amalgam of hard news dispatches, letters, and articles from writers as far-ranging as Ernie Pyle, Bill Mauldin, John Hersey, Edward R. Murrow, and Martha Gellhorn to John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, and Gertrude Stein. Together they impart not only the where and when of events but the emotional toll of war as well. With the advent of television, this is also an archive of a brand of journalism unfortunately long gone. The volumes include 64 pages of photos and more than 200 cartoons, drawings, and maps. The Library of America has outdone itself with this set; Reporting World War II is quite simply outstanding. Highly recommended for all public and academic libraries.?Michael Rogers, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Library of America
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1883011051
• ISBN 13: 9781883011055
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 970