In nearly three thousand BBC broadcasts over fifty-eight years,
Alistair Cooke reported on America, revealing our country's
complexities and idiosyncrasies to a global audience. He was one of
the most widely read and widely heard chroniclers of America - the
Twentieth Century's de Tocqueville. Shortly after the bombing of
Pearl Harbor in 1941, Alistair Cooke, a newly naturalized American
citizen, set out to see his country as it was undergoing 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.? Working throughout the
war, Cooke finished The American Home Front as the atomic bomb was
being dropped on Hiroshima. His publisher thought there would be
little interest in books on the war, so it was stuffed in a closet.
It stayed there for almost sixty years, nearly forgotten, until it
was unearthed shortly before Cooke's death in 2004. The American
Home Front is a fascinating artifact, a charming travelogue, and a
sharp portrait that shows America changing from civilian pursuits
to military engagement, from the production of consumer goods to
materials of war. It is also a unique record of American life.
Cooke travels small highways, with their advertising signs and
their local typography, in an age before the interstate highway
system. He chronicles the regional glories he encounters, elements
of long-lost culture such as his beloved soda fountains, and the
reactions of the citizens, from indifference to grief, from
opportunism to resilience under military threat. Filled with
touching personal stories of the effects of war, from a Japanese
family facing internment that tries to sell Cooke their car, to the
experiences of the unemployed relocating in hopes of jobs in a
gunpowder factory, The American Home Front is the work of an
experienced, talented journalist; it is intelligent, touching, and
funny.
General
Imprint: |
Brilliance Audio
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
October 2011 |
First published: |
November 2011 |
Authors: |
Alistair Cooke
|
Readers: |
John Byrne Cooke
|
Dimensions: |
130 x 152 x 20mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Standard format
|
Disks: |
11 |
Running time: |
780 minutes |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-4558-5386-1 |
Categories: |
Books >
Sport & Leisure >
Miscellaneous items >
General
|
LSN: |
1-4558-5386-0 |
Barcode: |
9781455853861 |
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