World War II (1931-1945)
“The Second World War presented a mirror to the human condition which blinded anyone who looked into it.” — Norman Mailer, “The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster” (1957)
Of the endless ocean of books on the Second World War, we have dozens and dozens of new and carefully chosen titles. I define it as beginning with the Japanese Empire’s invasion of Manchuria and ending with not only V-E and V-J Days but also the immediate crises of displaced people, the Soviet Union’s creation of the Iron Curtain, and the growing revelations of the extent of the Holocaust.
In significant ways the Second World War was the defining crucible of the 20th Century. The First World War was prelude, the legacy of the 19th Century’s imperialism, and the Cold War was the sequel. Of the making of books about it there is no end — but the persistence of good research and good writing, and good publication underscores the war’s centrality of the world we live in today and the world our descendents will live in for the foreseeable future.
Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific
Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific
Robert Leckie, one of America's greatest military historians, was both an eyewitness and participant to some of the greatest battles in the Pacific. Helmet for My Pillow is his vivid account of combat and survival in World War II. In January 1942, in the aftermath of the infamous Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. From boot camp in Parris Island to the bloody war in the Pacific, Robert Leckie experienced it all--the booze, the brawling, the loving on sixty-two-hour liberty; the courageous fighting and dying in combat as the U.S. Marines slugged it out, inch by inch, island by island across the Pacific to the shores of Japan.