Book Review: 'The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945'

(C) 2007, Alfred A. Knopf

On September 23, 2007, PBS aired A Necessary War, Episode One of Ken Burns' seven-part series The War. Co-written by Burns and historian Geoffrey C. Ward, The War is a 14-hour look at World War II and how it affected the U.S. through the experiences of four geographically-distributed towns in America - Luverne, Minnesota; Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama; and Sacramento, California.

12 days earlier, Alfred A. Knopf had published a companion book, The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945. The 408-page hardcover was co-written by Ward (Before the Trumpet: Young Franklin Roosevelt, 1882-1905) and filmmaker Burns. (Ward and Burns have co-written five books and collaborated on many documentaries since 1990's The Civil War, including Baseball, Jazz, Prohibition, and The Roosevelts: An Intimate History.)

The vivid voices that speak from these pages are not those of historians or scholars. They are the voices of ordinary men and women who experienced—and helped to win—the most devastating war in history, in which between 50 and 60 million lives were lost.

Focusing on the citizens of four towns— Luverne, Minnesota; Sacramento, California; Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama;—The War follows more than forty people from 1941 to 1945. Woven largely from their memories, the compelling, unflinching narrative unfolds month by bloody month, with the outcome always in doubt. All the iconic events are here, from Pearl Harbor to the liberation of the concentration camps—but we also move among prisoners of war and Japanese American internees, defense workers and schoolchildren, and families who struggled simply to stay together while their men were shipped off to Europe, the Pacific, and North Africa.

Enriched by maps and hundreds of photographs, including many never published before, this is an intimate, profoundly affecting chronicle of the war that shaped our world. - Publisher's blurb, The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945

Like the 14-hour PBS television series it is based on, The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945 is divided into seven chapters. These are:

1. A Necessary War: December 1941-December 1942
2. When Things Get Tough: January-November 1943
3. A Deadly Calling: December 1943-June 1944
4. Pride of Our Nation: June-August 1944
5. FUBAR: August-December 1944
6. The Ghost Front: December 1944-March 1945
7. A World Without War: March-August 1945

In addition, the book features an introduction by Ken Burns. In an essay titled "No Ordinary Lives," he explains why, "after years of deflecting requests that we do something specifically on World War II," he and the creative team at Florentine Films decided to make The War:

"[W]e learned to our great alarm that one thousand veterans of the Second World War were dying each day in America; that we were losing, among our fathers and grandfathers, a direct connection to the deeds of that unusually reticent generation. It seemed clear that if we, the inheritors of the world they struggled so hard to create for us, neglected to hear them out before they passed away, we would be guilty of a historical amnesia too irresponsible to contemplate.

"The second statistic was just as troubling as the first. Among a number of demoralizing facts about the continuing crisis in our schools over what our children know (and don't know), one item stood out. It seems that an unacceptably large number of graduating high school students think we fought with the Germans against the Russians in the Second World War."

The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945 is a "bottom-to-top" account of America's involvement in World War II. It's based on interviews with ordinary Americans - those who served overseas in Europe and the Pacific in the Army, the Army Air Forces, the Coast Guard, the Marine Corps, the Navy, as well as those who experienced the war on the home front. Through their recollections, readers can experience what it must have been like to fly nine-hour-long bombing missions over Germany in a B-17 Flying Fortress or to be in the first wave of troops during the Normandy landings on D-Day. From Pearl Harbor to FDR's signing of the infamous Executive Order 9066 - which authorized the incarceration of Japanese-American citizens in internment camps for the duration of the war - to the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Ward and Burns cover the highs and lows of what was "the greatest cataclysm in history." 

 When reading The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945, you must keep in mind that neither the book or the series it's based on are a comprehensive history of World War II. As the introductory card at the beginning of each episode reminds us:

The Second World War was fought in thousands of places, too many for any one accounting. 

This is the story of four American towns and how their citizens experienced that war.

As a result, The War doesn't delve much into the wartime experiences of other participants, such as the Soviet Union (Russia), France, or Britain. Right from the start, Burns and his creative team (Lynn Novick, Geoffrey Ward, and countless others) made it clear that this project is not the entire picture of World War II. 

It's also not a book about strategy, tactics, or weapons, nor does it feature interviews with historians or economists. The only politician who is featured in The War is the late Daniel K. Inouye, the long-serving U.S. Senator from Hawaii and a veteran of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Inouye was 17 when he witnessed Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 and, after the Army dropped its ban on Japanese-Americans in 1943, volunteered to serve as an enlisted man. He swiftly rose to the ranks, earning a promotion to sergeant within a year, then a battlefield commission as a second lieutenant in France during the Vosges Mountains campaign. His story is one of the most inspiring accounts of patriotism, courage, and self-sacrifice in both the film and the book.

Ward and Burns are gifted writers and, more importantly, natural storytellers. They infuse the book with a stirring narrative that takes the reader back in time to history's largest clash of arms. Together, the historian and the documentary maker explain how and why "the Second World War brought out the best and the worst in a generation - and blurred the two so that they became at times indistinguishable."

Product details Hardcover: 480 pages Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf; First edition (September 11, 2007) Language: English ISBN-10: 0307262839 ISBN-13: 978-0307262837 Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 1.3 x 11.2 inches