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.
Reporting World War II Boxed Set [2 volumes]
Reporting World War II Boxed Set [2 volumes]
Released to mark the 75th anniversary of America’s entrance into World War II, this Library of America two-volume boxed set gathers the acclaimed collection that evokes an extraordinary period in American history—and in American journalism. In two authoritative Library of America volumes, nearly 200 pieces by 80 writers record events from Munich to the birth of the nuclear age. Included are reports by William L. Shirer, Edward R. Murrow, Martha Gellhorn, Ernie Pyle, Margaret Bourke-White, and scores of other of the era’s great journalists, as well as the complete texts of two books: Bill Mauldin’s Up Front, the classic evocation of war from the GI’s point of view, presented with his famous cartoons, and Hiroshima, John Hersey’s compassionate account of the first atomic bombing and its aftermath. Each volume contains a chronology, maps, biographical profiles, notes and a glossary, and 32 pages of photographs.
The advisory board for Reporting World War II includes Samuel Hynes, Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature emeritus at Princeton University; Anne Matthews, the first woman to direct the Princeton Writing Program; writer Nancy Caldwell Sorel (1934-2015), and Roger J. Spiller, George C. Marshall Distinguished Professor of Military History (retired) at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Each Library of America series volume is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker.