Synopsis
British journalist Alistair Cooke was known for his insightful dispatches from America, which for decades he considered his second home. This book recounts his early experiences, as he arrives in America shortly after Pearl Harbor and begins what will be a long and deep relationship with the place where he will later say he feels "at home." As he writes with feeling about the wartime sacrifices made by many Americans (though not all, he remarks), what comes through is Cooke's genuine interest in people, places, and things.
Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Cooke, a newly naturalized citizen, set out to see his country as it was undergoing a monumental change. He wanted to "see what the war had done to people, to the towns I might go through, to some jobs and crops, to stretches of landscape I loved and had seen at peace; and to let significance fall where it might." Working throughout the war, Cooke finished the manuscript as the atomic bomb was being dropped on Hiroshima. His publisher at the time thought there would be little interest in books on the war, and so it was stuffed in a closet for almost sixty years, until shortly before Cooke's death. Meanwhile, he had become one of the most widely read chroniclers of America, and his record of a lost country are captivating.--From publisher description.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 2006-04-30 |
| Size | | Length: | 327 pages | | Height: | 9.3 in | | Width: | 6.3 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 21.1 oz |
Publisher's Note
The famed BBC correspondent furnishes an incisive, firsthand portrait of America on the homefront during the early days of World War II, describing the dramatic changes that were occurring throughout the nation during the period as it was transformed from a civilian society to a wartime one, as seen through the eyes of ordinary citizens.
Industry Reviews
"A vivid, endlessly interesting view of the home front."
(04/01/2006)
"In addition to being a broadcaster, Mr. Cooke was a print reporter, and a superb one, with a sharp, skeptical eye and a stylish pen. Both are on brilliant display here. Despite the grim circumstances, THE AMERICAN HOME FRONT can be read, with great pleasure, as nothing more than a colorful travelogue, given poignancy by the passage of time. Cruising down two-lane highways, along routes since shoved aside by the interstates, Mr. Cooke sees a vanished America of drug stores and soda fountains, of unspoiled Western forests and empty, pristine beaches."
(05/24/2006)
"We are certainly hearing from a younger Cooke, though not necessarily a more callow one. The intelligence is already sceptical, the eye alert for the important rather than the iconic,....The latter parts of the book were used as material for some of his later LETTERS FROM AMERICA on the BBC. And in a sense this journey to see for himself served as the foundation for all the letters."
(07/01/2006)
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