Reporting World War II: American Journalism 1938-1946

by Samual Hynes, Anne Matthews, Nancy Caldwell Sorel

Drawn from wartime newspaper and magazine reports, radio transcripts, and books, Reporting World War II captures the unfolding drama through the work of more than 50 writers, the best of a remarkable generation of reporters. Here are William L. Shirer and Howard K. Smith inside Nazi Germany; A J. Liebling on the fall of France and the Tunisian campaign; Edward R. Murrow on the London Blitz and Buchenwald; Ernie Pyle on the war in the foxholes. Margaret Bourke-White flies over the lines in Italy; Robert Sherrod and Tom Lea record the horrors of the Pacific war; Janet Flanner and Martha Gellhorn examine a defeated Germany. On the homefront, E. B. White visits a bond rally, James Agee reviews newsreels, and Roi Ottley exposes racism in the military. Included in full is Hiroshima , John Hersey's classic account of the first atomic bombing and its aftermath.

Genres: History, World War II, Nonfiction, Journalism

970 pages, Paperback

First published May 7, 2001

Reviews

[Laura Weck · Rating 5 out of 5]

totally riveting!

[John Lomnicki, · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first, just reading to get additional background, but discovered and insights that made me stop reading. I needed a break to think it over.

[Jamie Belanger · Rating 5 out of 5]

A treasure trove of information on World War II. This collection follows American journalism throughout the war, with articles ordered more or less chronologically (some articles are out of order due to wartime censorship, some due to the reporters being in combat and unable to transmit their words). I can't recall ever seeing a more comprehensive overview of World War II in one place - from the Munich Conference in 1938 to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. This single-volume collection concludes with a full timeline of the war, giving a breakdown of major battles and events on a month-by-month basis. It also has several maps and a few pages of biographical information on the reporters.

I was worried that this would read like a dry textbook, but it didn't. I can't recall a single article that was not interesting. From descriptions of combat in the Pacific to one reporter who wrote of his experience being wounded, this is an amazing, chilling glimpse of history and war. Even the concluding piece, John Hersey's rather lengthy Hiroshima (75 pages long!), didn't disappoint. I was worried that such a long article would be boring, but its intertwined stories of six people who lived through the bombing was gripping from the first page.