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Back Home
Well, Bill Mauldin is ...
Back Home and G. I. Joe's favorite complaint artist is hard at work with pen and brush, on your troubles-and his. Fitting words to pictures, Mauldin takes a jesting jab at all the things that make life miserable for the ex-army citizen.
Here are two hundred of the cartoons that made Willy and Joe a national institution-plus 50,000 words about what's wrong with the Wonderful Post-War World!
Note: The ISBN 9780891908562 was added by current retailers.
Back Home and G. I. Joe's favorite complaint artist is hard at work with pen and brush, on your troubles-and his. Fitting words to pictures, Mauldin takes a jesting jab at all the things that make life miserable for the ex-army citizen.
Here are two hundred of the cartoons that made Willy and Joe a national institution-plus 50,000 words about what's wrong with the Wonderful Post-War World!
Note: The ISBN 9780891908562 was added by current retailers.
315 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1947
2 people are currently reading
81 people want to read
About the author
Bill Mauldin
38 books22 followersWilliam Henry "Bill" Mauldin was a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist from the United States. He was most famous for his World War II cartoons depicting American soldiers, as represented by the archetypal characters Willie and Joe. These cartoons were broadly published and distributed in the American army abroad and in the United States.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
March 17, 2010
A fascinating look at early post-war politics. You can swap the names Russia, Rankin, The House of UnAmerican Activities for Iran, Cheney, and the Tea Party, and this book would seem surpassingly up to date. You’d pretty much still have to call Republicans Republicans, though the strife is worse now. There was union bating then and now, snobbery then and now, and dishonesty in political discourse then and now. I thought the U.S. was once better than this. Maybe it wasn't after all.
November 16, 2021
I just finished reading Back Home, by Bill Mauldin, published in 1947. One of the things that's most discouraging about it is the fact that NOTHING HAS CHANGED since then. This paragraph, from the final chapter, is proof.
"I have heard people say we should be strong so that if there is another war we can win it, then show the world the right way to live afterward. This is old stuff, and it is poppycock. Our behavior hardly qualifies us as world leaders. Ours is one of the most conservative governments in the world today, and one of the most bumbling. We have more provincialism and bigotry and superstition and prejudice per square mile than almost any other nation. We like to think of ourselves as a young, progressive country, but, while we do have energy, we have become smug and self-satisfied."
He goes on to say, in reference to a measure put before congress regarding mandatory universal military training:
"If we must become strong in arms again, we should agitate against the professional militarists, the imperialists, the bigots, and the little Fuhrers in our midst; it would be a terrible thing if the strength we built up fell into their hands."
We didn't get mandatory military training, but everything we do have did, indeed, fall into the wrong hands in November of 2016. Let's hope we can dig our way out of the mess little Fuhrer trump has made.
"I have heard people say we should be strong so that if there is another war we can win it, then show the world the right way to live afterward. This is old stuff, and it is poppycock. Our behavior hardly qualifies us as world leaders. Ours is one of the most conservative governments in the world today, and one of the most bumbling. We have more provincialism and bigotry and superstition and prejudice per square mile than almost any other nation. We like to think of ourselves as a young, progressive country, but, while we do have energy, we have become smug and self-satisfied."
He goes on to say, in reference to a measure put before congress regarding mandatory universal military training:
"If we must become strong in arms again, we should agitate against the professional militarists, the imperialists, the bigots, and the little Fuhrers in our midst; it would be a terrible thing if the strength we built up fell into their hands."
We didn't get mandatory military training, but everything we do have did, indeed, fall into the wrong hands in November of 2016. Let's hope we can dig our way out of the mess little Fuhrer trump has made.
May 29, 2017
Everything old is new again. Written in the first few years after WWII, Mauldin frankly discussed the moods and concerns of returning soldiers, all of which are still far to common today. The section on soaring property costs and intrusive government market regulation, The section on corruption and incompetence in the Veterans Administration, The section on political rent-seeking by supposedly apolitical advocacy groups, the section on Russian/communist infiltration and corruption of American society, and the section on self-aggrandizing virtue-signalling by people far removed from and unaffected by the very problems they claim to be passionate about could have all been written yesterday rather than 70 years ago.
May 19, 2014
Some great cartoons from the best cartoonist of WWII. Gives you a picture of how things change, but how they also stay the same. A great book for research of the common man in the year after the war.
October 23, 2019
This is a really interesting book if only when you compare it to his first book, Up Front, here you can see he figures out that a man who has spent most of his adult life in the US Army, finding himself the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and rich with money from his 1st book. All trying to fit back into a post war US and his old life. Not only that, but he takes swipes at the veterans service organizations which seem to not do much about helping the new veterans out (which seems to be a standard mantra), the lack of civil rights for the Japanese Americans and Black Americans that were veterans. The initial post war politics with the fights between the red hunts starting by folks supported by the klans to the naive isolationists trying to get back in bed with the reds even though at the time Stalin's men and Mao's troops were trampling on freedoms in Europe and China. His chapter about being in Hollywood and dealing with folks who dabbled in communism or fascism while in college or because their mentors in the actors guilds were members is eye opening because of how unsure some of those folks feel now or ever about what they saw in the newsreels.
This books demands a republication and re-release so that others can see one more segment of post war America in that 1945-1947 time period when the world seemed to be the US's oyster and the issues of re-integration of the American service members into society, the growing civil rights issues, the looming issues of political strife with left wing vs right wing.
This books demands a republication and re-release so that others can see one more segment of post war America in that 1945-1947 time period when the world seemed to be the US's oyster and the issues of re-integration of the American service members into society, the growing civil rights issues, the looming issues of political strife with left wing vs right wing.
November 6, 2014
Like E.B. Sledge's
China Marine
, this is the lesser-known follow-up to a rightly famous WWII classic.
Picking up where Up Front left off, this book should be everybody's first-stop shop for understanding those who survived global war's front lines and came back to a nation untouched by real violence. Mauldin's plain-spoken commentary, both witty and blunt, entertains and enlightens. The one-shot cartoons here and there ain't bad either.
Many of those cartoons feature Willie and Joe, the dogfaces that are still famous from their appearances in Up Front. Their wartime exploits were as close as most American civilians (and thousands of support troops) ever made it to real war, yet there was a never a corpse in a single frame. Decorum wouldn't have stood for such a thing, but their omission made sense to Mauldin, too: He was writing and drawing for the guys whose buddies were dying every day - they didn't need any more images of death. But when the war ended and everybody back home was throwing a parade, Mauldin wanted one final cartoon killing Willie and Joe off. The syndicate wouldn't allow it, so instead they had to experience the transitional pains to normalcy like their real-life counterparts.
Picking up where Up Front left off, this book should be everybody's first-stop shop for understanding those who survived global war's front lines and came back to a nation untouched by real violence. Mauldin's plain-spoken commentary, both witty and blunt, entertains and enlightens. The one-shot cartoons here and there ain't bad either.
Many of those cartoons feature Willie and Joe, the dogfaces that are still famous from their appearances in Up Front. Their wartime exploits were as close as most American civilians (and thousands of support troops) ever made it to real war, yet there was a never a corpse in a single frame. Decorum wouldn't have stood for such a thing, but their omission made sense to Mauldin, too: He was writing and drawing for the guys whose buddies were dying every day - they didn't need any more images of death. But when the war ended and everybody back home was throwing a parade, Mauldin wanted one final cartoon killing Willie and Joe off. The syndicate wouldn't allow it, so instead they had to experience the transitional pains to normalcy like their real-life counterparts.
April 16, 2020
What an insightful book! First published in 1947, Bill Mauldin was an enlisted GI and political cartoonist who traveled with US troops during World War 2 and published cartoons about the experiences of common troops in such periodicals as Stars and Stripes. Those cartoons were collected and published in a book entitled, Up Front. After being discharged, his cartoons continued to be published and were focused on the ex GI's conversion to civilian life, or were supposed to be. These cartoons were then collected and published in this book, Back Home.
A good political cartoonist must be insightful enough to see things within society that society does not necessarily see within itself, or cares to see either. And that can be very uncomfortable. So when Bill Mauldin shifted the subject of his drawings from soldier life to life back in America - Jim Crow America - House on UnAmerican Activities America - he upset a lot of people. Newspaper editors wanted to please as many people as possible and offend no one, and that was not Bill Mauldin's style.
But his cartoons hit home. This book is not just a collection of cartoons. But it is an examination of his own personal beliefs which led him to draw each of those cartoons, helping the reader to place then in context. Otherwise, since 70 some years have passed, some of them may seem a bit ambiguous. But then again, I found many of them to still speak volumes about us today. And that takes a man with great insight.
A good political cartoonist must be insightful enough to see things within society that society does not necessarily see within itself, or cares to see either. And that can be very uncomfortable. So when Bill Mauldin shifted the subject of his drawings from soldier life to life back in America - Jim Crow America - House on UnAmerican Activities America - he upset a lot of people. Newspaper editors wanted to please as many people as possible and offend no one, and that was not Bill Mauldin's style.
But his cartoons hit home. This book is not just a collection of cartoons. But it is an examination of his own personal beliefs which led him to draw each of those cartoons, helping the reader to place then in context. Otherwise, since 70 some years have passed, some of them may seem a bit ambiguous. But then again, I found many of them to still speak volumes about us today. And that takes a man with great insight.
July 27, 2011
I'm admittedly anapolitical, so there was a lot about this book that I didn't appreciate. Is there any political satirist that isn't inherently angry about something? (Would he have anything to say if he wasn't?) Does all that ax-grinding make any difference to peoples' lives? Does anyone become kinder, gentler through cartoons and ranting?
Read in small doses, this was an entirely fascinating look at post-war (WWII) America. The social psychologist in me ate it up! Every chapter covered a different aspect of a nation in the throes of adolescence: the returning GI and his place in society, reemploying and refitting a nation, Top Brass and bad attitudes, Hollywood and the war image, immigration and Displaced Persons, racism and reconstruction, the motor industry with it's shortages and highway robbery, the early days of the Cold War....
These are pre-internet blogs! One could learn a lot from an expert!
one more word to a 'super review!' I couldn't resist this pointless sentence ;0°
Read in small doses, this was an entirely fascinating look at post-war (WWII) America. The social psychologist in me ate it up! Every chapter covered a different aspect of a nation in the throes of adolescence: the returning GI and his place in society, reemploying and refitting a nation, Top Brass and bad attitudes, Hollywood and the war image, immigration and Displaced Persons, racism and reconstruction, the motor industry with it's shortages and highway robbery, the early days of the Cold War....
These are pre-internet blogs! One could learn a lot from an expert!
one more word to a 'super review!' I couldn't resist this pointless sentence ;0°
May 16, 2014
Brilliant. In my imagination, the end of WWII was an almost magical time in history-- imagine, a world-wide war that ENDED!
Mauldin shows that the praise and hurrahing for the returning heroes (my dad among them)didn't last long. There was anti-GI prejudice, and they would face tremendous difficulties getting work and lodgings.
Although Mauldin's cartoons present this with wry-- and bitter-- humor, the cartoons and text form a very thought-provoking look into historical realities. And like all good histories, that makes "Back Home" a thought-provoking consideration of the present as well.
Mauldin shows that the praise and hurrahing for the returning heroes (my dad among them)didn't last long. There was anti-GI prejudice, and they would face tremendous difficulties getting work and lodgings.
Although Mauldin's cartoons present this with wry-- and bitter-- humor, the cartoons and text form a very thought-provoking look into historical realities. And like all good histories, that makes "Back Home" a thought-provoking consideration of the present as well.
April 20, 2018
Too bad the name and talent of Bill Mauldin are foreign words to today’s youth. Almost as talented a writer as he is an artist, Mauldin’s commentary authenticates life in America for soldiers after WW II. His cartoons accentuate his feelings. Worth the read. The only drawback is a bit heavy on some of the politics involved in those years, yet this accent is minimal.
February 28, 2021
An engaging look at the America that veterans returned to after WWII. Mauldin touches on the topics that as he found himself illustrating as he tried to find his footing as a civilian cartoonist. His commentary on fascism, racism, and American politics resonate with particular power as I read the book in Spring of 2021. How little has changed.
September 15, 2009
Humor which isn't quite as grim, but every bit as poignant, as that found in Mauldin's wartime collection, "Up Front," only this time based on the G.I.'s common experience of the stresses encountered on returning to civilian life.
Read
December 10, 2008He climbed up on the soapbox a bit in this one but at least he had the right viewpoint on HUAC.
January 21, 2023
I like Bill Mauldin, and I like his cartoons. But I had a hard time with this book and didn't quite finish it. It was not, I assure you, Bill Mauldin's fault.
The book was published in 1947, and his astute and intelligent commentary and cartoons reflect the culture of the United States as it was then. The world the returning G.I.s faced was not a pleasant one. The war was unpleasant, of course, but home was no picnic either. I think the hardest thing for me reading this in 2023, three-quarters of a century later (76 years, to be exact), things have not changed that much since then.
Soldiers still have trouble finding jobs. In 1947 they also had trouble finding housing. Most of them had wives and sweethearts who waited, and so they married and had children--making jobs and housing even more important, but also there was the baby boom causing a population bubble which continues to have consequences. And in 1945, returning soldiers faced incredibly overt bigotry and racism. Politics split between liberals and conservatives (sound familiar?). It was very depressing to realize how little progress we've seen on any of these fronts.
I find it disappointing how little we have addressed the needs of soldiers who have been mustered out of service. Medical care? It takes months. Jobs? Equal opportunities? Support for the transition from military to civilian life? No more so than what there was in the mid-1940s.
It seems so obvious what is needed. It is impossible to comprehend why these issues have not been addressed.
The book was published in 1947, and his astute and intelligent commentary and cartoons reflect the culture of the United States as it was then. The world the returning G.I.s faced was not a pleasant one. The war was unpleasant, of course, but home was no picnic either. I think the hardest thing for me reading this in 2023, three-quarters of a century later (76 years, to be exact), things have not changed that much since then.
Soldiers still have trouble finding jobs. In 1947 they also had trouble finding housing. Most of them had wives and sweethearts who waited, and so they married and had children--making jobs and housing even more important, but also there was the baby boom causing a population bubble which continues to have consequences. And in 1945, returning soldiers faced incredibly overt bigotry and racism. Politics split between liberals and conservatives (sound familiar?). It was very depressing to realize how little progress we've seen on any of these fronts.
I find it disappointing how little we have addressed the needs of soldiers who have been mustered out of service. Medical care? It takes months. Jobs? Equal opportunities? Support for the transition from military to civilian life? No more so than what there was in the mid-1940s.
It seems so obvious what is needed. It is impossible to comprehend why these issues have not been addressed.
June 14, 2023
Bill Mauldin being a typical South Westerner, puts things out front. Even though this was written 70 years ago, what really has changed in our nation? He takes on newly popped up organizations and some not so new. He gets warmed up by starting with the American Legion and all the near sighted views and their aim to take over the VA. He then goes after the DAR and the IRS. This is not tongue-in-Cheek, he is dead serious about what he sees as power and money greed, to the loss to the veterans. Again, not much has changed. Does this sound familiar seeing scams today with the veteran groups that have been busted today?
February 2, 2023
The tale of Mauldin's return after the war and adjusting to the US again. Wrapped up in this is the tale millions of GI's returning and a nation trying to adjust to a new world. Lots of Mauldin's cartoons in here.
July 20, 2024
Honest and funny. Packed with great art.
December 26, 2014
"During the war, Willie and Joe’s resilience, humor, and camaraderie served as partial redemption for the brutalizing and dehumanizing conditions of their existence." (p. xii) General Patton reportedly hated the sloppy twosome, but when he tried to stop the cartoons, General Dwight D. Eisenhower stepped in to support Mauldin’s “foxhole realism.” It was good for the soldiers’ morale to feel that someone understood them and it was good for folks back home to understand some of the hardships of war, albeit in small and humorous doses. Many of these cartoons were immortalized in Mauldin’s biography, Up Front
Willie & Joe: Back Home is quite a different story. Just as Mauldin had championed the cause of the lowly recruits on the battlefield, he came to their defense after the war. The book’s introduction states: Our collective memory and history books emphasize the national unity of the time, a patriotic and unquestioned support for the cause and those who fought for it. But the everyday reality was far more complicated…. Most distressing to Bill was the public’s continued ignorance of the special hardships borne by combat veterans, who represented only 5% to 10% of uniformed personnel. As he had relentlessly shown in his Willie and Joe cartoons, the American army was really two armies, one that fought and another that didn’t. Up Front had chronicled how those farthest removed from combat claimed the lion’s share of benefits: alcohol, ribbons, promotions, good clothing, hot baths, decent food, entertainment, black market luxuries, and women. Bill was stunned to see this disparity extended to the home front… The real Willies and Joes were isolated, in the shadows, misunderstood and overlooked, alienated survivors out of 100 million dead worldwide. More serious were the economic disadvantages that former dogfaces suffered. While engineers, journalists, draftsmen, and clerks had acquired skills in the army that gave them a leg up on the competition at home, riflemen had gained little useful experience and had a far tougher time finding jobs than other veterans.
Mauldin post-war cartoons were extremely hard-hitting and divisive and his career took a nose dive as paper after paper dropped his column. Reading the book’s intro is essential to the understanding of many of the drawings. They are the work of a gifted but disgruntled artist and, frankly, they’re depressing. However, I recommend the book to those who are interested in WWII history because of Mauldin's fame, and also because it reveals many of the prevailing attitudes of post-war America.
Willie & Joe: Back Home is quite a different story. Just as Mauldin had championed the cause of the lowly recruits on the battlefield, he came to their defense after the war. The book’s introduction states: Our collective memory and history books emphasize the national unity of the time, a patriotic and unquestioned support for the cause and those who fought for it. But the everyday reality was far more complicated…. Most distressing to Bill was the public’s continued ignorance of the special hardships borne by combat veterans, who represented only 5% to 10% of uniformed personnel. As he had relentlessly shown in his Willie and Joe cartoons, the American army was really two armies, one that fought and another that didn’t. Up Front had chronicled how those farthest removed from combat claimed the lion’s share of benefits: alcohol, ribbons, promotions, good clothing, hot baths, decent food, entertainment, black market luxuries, and women. Bill was stunned to see this disparity extended to the home front… The real Willies and Joes were isolated, in the shadows, misunderstood and overlooked, alienated survivors out of 100 million dead worldwide. More serious were the economic disadvantages that former dogfaces suffered. While engineers, journalists, draftsmen, and clerks had acquired skills in the army that gave them a leg up on the competition at home, riflemen had gained little useful experience and had a far tougher time finding jobs than other veterans.
Mauldin post-war cartoons were extremely hard-hitting and divisive and his career took a nose dive as paper after paper dropped his column. Reading the book’s intro is essential to the understanding of many of the drawings. They are the work of a gifted but disgruntled artist and, frankly, they’re depressing. However, I recommend the book to those who are interested in WWII history because of Mauldin's fame, and also because it reveals many of the prevailing attitudes of post-war America.
July 8, 2016
I initially thought this would just be a collection of Bill Mauldin's one panel comic strips but it's accompanied by long essays espousing his beliefs and thoughts on things as varied as Communism, automobiles, unions, his editors, Hollywood and the life of a soldier upon his return to civilian life. Sprinkled throughout, about one per page and a half, are the comic strips, most of which relate to the context of Mauldin's essays. Although it's more of a book than a strip collection I thought his writing was quite informative and gives you a real sense of what America was like in the mid-1940s, just after WWII, and almost felt like they could have been magazine articles from the era. The comics were also improved with context, as I think I would have missed a lot of the references without Mauldin's writing. They didn't always have a sharp zing but nevertheless, the book is a valuable time capsule.
May 17, 2014
Back Home by Bill Mauldin (W. Sloane Assoc. 1947)(917.3). Post-WWII cartoons by the legendary military cartoonist. My rating: 7/10, finished 1983.
October 5, 2013
Most of these hit the mark, though there is a lot of repetition in theme and subject.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews