An inspirational portrait of America`s finest people......

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	• The Greatest Generation Tom Brokaw Random House, 2004 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 471 reviews view larger image
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Generation like no other

America how it should be. All liberal idiots should be required to read this to understand patriotism.

Great premise but not a literary heavyweight...

The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw is what I would call a "pop" book. It's written to be a bestseller but not what I would consider a literary heavyweight. While the premise of The Greatest Generation is very noble, the writing was too simplistic.

Tom Brokaw traveled to Normandy, France for both the 40th and 50th anniversaries of the D-Day Invasion. He was especially touched by the stories of the returning veterans, which gave him the idea for this book. Each chapter is devoted to a different person or persons. Most were soldiers, some were famous and some not. He also highlights people who had support roles during World War II. Many opportunities opened up for women as so many men were in uniform. Brokaw also covers the shameful aspects of this period including discrimination of blacks and women by the military as well as the Japanese Internment Camps.

I do believe that the people who lived through World War II are the greatest generation. My parents are included in this group. Having barely survived the Depression, they were then forced to deal with the realities of war. According to Brokaw, they were all honorable, courageous, spiritual, dependable, hardworking, loyal and modest. Although these are noble attributes, Brokaw showcases the best and the brightest. What about the soldiers who returned home with psychological scars? I'm sure many became alcoholics or drug addicts. Other veterans were not easy to live with as they bottled up all their memories and emotions from the war. I just think that in trying to be a cheerleader for this generation, Brokaw is not providing a true picture. It also seems as if The Greatest Generation is written on a 5th grade reading level.

I did learn a few facts by reading The Greatest Generation and many of Brokaw's profiles are interesting. But do not think that this book is a major literary work.

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5 Star Concept Lacking in Execution

I wanted to love this book and place it on a pedestal. The concept of young adults (such as my father) steeled during the Great Depression, rising to the occasion in World War II to do what needed to be done and often more, and then coming home to better themselves, their families, communities, and country is a wonderful story. If not the Greatest Generation of all, they were among the best that our country can produce. In fact, while the era was tainted by injustice at home, the men and women of this generation were the ones that really led the post-war battles for social equality. Being a baby-boomer myself, Brokaw's book adds a lot of substance and meaning to the adults around during my childhood. I wonder how many of the often distant and stern and sometimes opaque men of my neighborhood and elsewhere were heroes with stories as inspiring as those told by Brokaw. My father never talked much about the War and I wonder what he could tell me of his time in Europe.

In the sense of being a tribute to its subject, "The Greatest Generating" is a success. Unfortunately there is a big "however." Basically, "The Greatest Generation" is a 5 Star concept that fell short in execution. The book consists of many profiles that are several pages in length. Each one generally tells the story of where the person came from, his or her service during World War II, re-entry into civilian society, and how the whole process affected one's life, ambitions, and ideals. Most of these are interesting to read and Brokaw does convey his message that they were people to be admired with something to teach younger generations. However as I progressed through the book, the individual parts of it seemed stronger than the whole. The problem is that the profiles appeared more and more repetitive and superficial as the book went on (I recently read Brokaw's "Boom" and had similar criticisms). Often, just as a subject person became very interesting and his story moving, the book would go on to somebody else. Perhaps Brokaw should have covered few people in more detail, but I am sure he felt overwhelmed by the number of stories to tell. This book is good, just not up to my expectations. Based on a 5 star concept and 3 star execution, I give it 4 Stars.

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An inspirational portrait of America`s finest people......

Tom Brokaw has brought forth one of the most inspiring and touching
accounts ever written.The Greatest Generation is a must-read for each
and every American.
His subjects will leave the reader feeling both admiration and gratitude
for these wonderful individuals and their sacrifices for our great nation.
You will be thankful for being an American when you experience this book.
Jeffrey Bryan
white Oak,NC

every american should read

this is a great book - every red blooded american should read this no matter his or her party affiliation, politics, race, creed, color or gender - i think brokaw did an excellent job of representing the mix of WWII characters fairly - definitely should be required reading in all high schools

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

"In the spring of 1984, I went to the northwest of France, to Normandy, to prepare an NBC documentary on the fortieth anniversary of D-Day, the massive and daring Allied invasion of Europe that marked the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. There, I underwent a life-changing experience. As I walked the beaches with the American veterans who had returned for this anniversary, men in their sixties and seventies, and listened to their stories, I was deeply moved and profoundly grateful for all they had done. Ten years later, I returned to Normandy for the fiftieth anniversary of the invasion, and by then I had come to understand what this generation of Americans meant to history. It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced."

In this superb book, Tom Brokaw goes out into America, to tell through the stories of individual men and women the story of a generation, America's citizen heroes and heroines who came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America. This generation was united not only by a common purpose, but also by common values--duty, honor, economy, courage, service, love of family and country, and, above all, responsibility for oneself. In this book, you will meet people whose everyday lives reveal how a generation persevered through war, and were trained by it, and then went on to create interesting and useful lives and the America we have today.

"At a time in their lives when their days and nights should have been filled with innocent adventure, love, and the lessons of the workaday world, they were fighting in the most primitive conditions possible across the bloodied landscape of France, Belgium, Italy, Austria, and the coral islands of the Pacific. They answered the call to save the world from the two most powerful and ruthless military machines ever assembled, instruments of conquest in the hands of fascist maniacs. They faced great odds and a late start, but they did not protest. They succeeded on every front. They won the war; they saved the world. They came home to joyous and short-lived celebrations and immediately began the task of rebuilding their lives and the world they wanted. They married in record numbers and gave birth to another distinctive generation, the Baby Boomers. A grateful nation made it possible for more of them to attend college than any society had ever educated, anywhere. They gave the world new science, literature, art, industry, and economic strength unparalleled in the long curve of history. As they now reach the twilight of their adventurous and productive lives, they remain, for the most part, exceptionally modest. They have so many stories to tell, stories that in many cases they have never told before, because in a deep sense they didn't think that what they were doing was that special, because everyone else was doing it too.

"This book, I hope, will in some small way pay tribute to those men and women who have given us the lives we have today--an American family portrait album of the greatest generation."

In this book you'll meet people like Charles Van Gorder, who set up during D-Day a MASH-like medical facility in the middle of the fighting, and then came home to create a clinic and hospital in his hometown. You'll hear George Bush talk about how, as a Navy Air Corps combat pilot, one of his assignments was to read the mail of the enlisted men under him, to be sure no sensitive military information would be compromised. And so, Bush says, "I learned about life." You'll meet Trudy Elion, winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine, one of the many women in this book who found fulfilling careers in the changed society as a result of the war. You'll meet Martha Putney, one of the first black women to serve in the newly formed WACs. And you'll meet the members of the Romeo Club (Retired Old Men Eating Out), friends for life.

Through these and other stories in The Greatest Generation, you'll relive with ordinary men and women, military heroes, famous people of great achievement, and community leaders how these extraordinary times forged the values and provided the training that made a people and a nation great.

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