What do you think?
Rate this book
The American Home Front: 1941-1942
In nearly three thousand BBC broadcasts over fifty-eight years, Alistair Cooke reported on America, illuminating our country for a global audience. He was one of the most widely read and widely heard chroniclers of America—the Twentieth Century’s de Tocqueville. Cooke died in 2004, but shortly before he passed away a long-forgotten manuscript resurfaced in a closet in his New York apartment. It was a travelogue of America during the early days of World War II that had sat there for sixty years. Published to stellar reviews in 2006, though “somewhat past deadline,” Cooke’s The American Home Front is a “valentine to his adopted country by someone who loved it as well as anyone and knew it better than most” (The Plain Dealer [Cleveland]). It is a unique artifact and a historical gem, “an unexpected and welcome discover in a time capsule.” (Washington Post) A portrait frozen in time, the book offers a charming look at the war through small towns, big cities, and the American landscape as they once were. The American Home Front is also a brilliant piece of reportage, a historical gem that “affirms Cooke’s enduring place as a great twentieth-century reporter” (American Heritage).
352 pages, Paperback
First published June 29, 2006
216 people are currently reading
683 people want to read
About the author
Alistair Cooke
106 books40 followersBooks of British-American journalist and broadcaster Alfred Alistair Cooke include
Around the World in 50 Years
(1966) and
Alistair Cooke's America
(1973).
After the University of Cambridge graduated him, the British Broadcasting Corporation hired him. This legendary television host rose to prominence for his reports on London Letter on radio of National Broadcasting Corporation during the 1930s. Cooke immigrated to the United States in 1937. In 1946, he began his radio appearances on Letter from America on the British Broadcasting Corporation; this tradition that lasted nearly six decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alistai...
After the University of Cambridge graduated him, the British Broadcasting Corporation hired him. This legendary television host rose to prominence for his reports on London Letter on radio of National Broadcasting Corporation during the 1930s. Cooke immigrated to the United States in 1937. In 1946, he began his radio appearances on Letter from America on the British Broadcasting Corporation; this tradition that lasted nearly six decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alistai...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
April 27, 2023
Allistair Cooke was a brilliant correspondent, writer, researcher, and also a host of Masterpiece Theater for many years. This book relates his experiences as he traveled by car across America researching the effect WWII had on the local population. Got to give credit where credit is due, Cooke (one of my favorite broadcasters) writes the longest paragraphs I have ever encountered! However, those dense paragraphs are crammed with many interesting and historical facts. I remember his broadcasts from the BBC, and his documentaries, usually shown on public television stations. It is a long read, not one that you would or should zip through. You have to absorb and ultimately understand what he is conveying to you. The only reason I didn’t give it a 5-star review was due to the length of the paragraphs in the first half of the book. Still highly recommended.
June 8, 2016
Reading this book is a remarkable experience. It's a literal road-trip through America of the early 1940s. English journalist Alistair Cooke, curious about the effects of World War II across America, but wise enough not to rely on newspaper pronouncements about the war effort or the public's patriotism, set off to explore the entire country and see for himself how the war was affecting people's lives, and if possible, how they felt about it.
The answer, of course, was neither simple nor small. The term "home front" here does not describe, say, a picture of what day-to-day life was like for the average middle-class American family in your typical American town. It's rather a sweeping tour of a big and incredibly varied country where the effects of the war were felt in hundreds of different ways, each specific to its own particular bit of American landscape and culture. As Cooke puts it, "You learn...that 'war' means all things to all men, but mostly it means the day-by-day effect on their own job or crop."
This being the case, there's a strong focus on the economic impacts of the war on different industries, professions, agriculture, labor, housing. We're taken not just through shipyards and defense plants, but are shown the effects of wartime demand and regulations on everything from lumber to cattle-ranching to insurance to the growing of oranges, beets or dates. We see towns teeming with an inrush of migrant workers to suddenly-sprung-up war plants, farmers lamenting the loss of workers to the draft or factories. Cooke visits small towns and big cities, talks to people in diners and drugstores and railroad stations and by the side of the road. Some of the moments are unforgettable—the quiet, grieving New Mexico town which lost a National Guard unit on Bataan; the encounter with the boy driving an ice-cream truck on a lonely California road while on furlough from the Army; or the wry humor of the Miami luxury hotels driving a bargain with the military taking them over for training schools.
My original reason for picking up this book was for research, with a hope that I'd learn some specifics about that average home-front life I mentioned above; and while I didn't exactly find that, I did glean one important thing. I think this book reminds you that everyday life (in all its American varieties) didn't just stop or become entirely wrapped up in "the war effort"—it wasn't all blackouts and scrap drives and victory gardens. Reading books about the military campaigns can kind of give you the skewed impression that life at home just slowed to a stop and waited while the men were overseas. But it didn't. People didn't just sit by the radio waiting for war news; they still got up and ate and chose what clothes to wear and went to church and school and work, even if wartime conditions changed how they did some of these things.
Part of what makes it interesting is Cooke's point of view. An Englishman, but also an American citizen who had evidently lived in the country for some time when he made this trip, he has enough of an outsider's perspective to be somewhat dispassionate, but enough knowledge of America and Americans to talk about them with understanding. Plus he's an excellent writer. Everything he notes is set in the context of the landscape he travels through, and so we get sharply observant descriptions of the deep South, the desert Southwest, the lush California coast, the mountains of Oregon and the plains of Kansas wheat, Minnesota dairy farms and New England in the autumn. There's really too much to do justice to in a brief review. We're treated to quick but observant snapshot views of the character of major American cities in the early forties, the changing scenery along the highways that link them and the small towns, farms and roadside diners along the way. It's a priceless time capsule—not least because it shows a vanished America, one much closer to its pioneer roots than it is to anything in our twenty-first century.
The answer, of course, was neither simple nor small. The term "home front" here does not describe, say, a picture of what day-to-day life was like for the average middle-class American family in your typical American town. It's rather a sweeping tour of a big and incredibly varied country where the effects of the war were felt in hundreds of different ways, each specific to its own particular bit of American landscape and culture. As Cooke puts it, "You learn...that 'war' means all things to all men, but mostly it means the day-by-day effect on their own job or crop."
This being the case, there's a strong focus on the economic impacts of the war on different industries, professions, agriculture, labor, housing. We're taken not just through shipyards and defense plants, but are shown the effects of wartime demand and regulations on everything from lumber to cattle-ranching to insurance to the growing of oranges, beets or dates. We see towns teeming with an inrush of migrant workers to suddenly-sprung-up war plants, farmers lamenting the loss of workers to the draft or factories. Cooke visits small towns and big cities, talks to people in diners and drugstores and railroad stations and by the side of the road. Some of the moments are unforgettable—the quiet, grieving New Mexico town which lost a National Guard unit on Bataan; the encounter with the boy driving an ice-cream truck on a lonely California road while on furlough from the Army; or the wry humor of the Miami luxury hotels driving a bargain with the military taking them over for training schools.
My original reason for picking up this book was for research, with a hope that I'd learn some specifics about that average home-front life I mentioned above; and while I didn't exactly find that, I did glean one important thing. I think this book reminds you that everyday life (in all its American varieties) didn't just stop or become entirely wrapped up in "the war effort"—it wasn't all blackouts and scrap drives and victory gardens. Reading books about the military campaigns can kind of give you the skewed impression that life at home just slowed to a stop and waited while the men were overseas. But it didn't. People didn't just sit by the radio waiting for war news; they still got up and ate and chose what clothes to wear and went to church and school and work, even if wartime conditions changed how they did some of these things.
Part of what makes it interesting is Cooke's point of view. An Englishman, but also an American citizen who had evidently lived in the country for some time when he made this trip, he has enough of an outsider's perspective to be somewhat dispassionate, but enough knowledge of America and Americans to talk about them with understanding. Plus he's an excellent writer. Everything he notes is set in the context of the landscape he travels through, and so we get sharply observant descriptions of the deep South, the desert Southwest, the lush California coast, the mountains of Oregon and the plains of Kansas wheat, Minnesota dairy farms and New England in the autumn. There's really too much to do justice to in a brief review. We're treated to quick but observant snapshot views of the character of major American cities in the early forties, the changing scenery along the highways that link them and the small towns, farms and roadside diners along the way. It's a priceless time capsule—not least because it shows a vanished America, one much closer to its pioneer roots than it is to anything in our twenty-first century.
May 21, 2017
The American home front during WWII, miracles and warts
Long after Alexis De Toqueville, and well before Andrei Codrescu, the one European who seemed to best understand America was Alistair Cooke. He first came to America on a student fellowship and in 1935 returned as a journalist for the BBC.
The letters and commentary represented in this book cover a sponsored tour and later travels of the US during World War II. It should be understood that at least one purpose for every piece in this collection is propaganda. He was charged with explaining to Britons who were under direct bombardment by the Germans what Americans were living through as part of their contribution to the war effort. Propaganda this may be, but it is also fair to point out that Mr. Cooke's love of America was sincerely heart felt.
British born Alistair Cooke would earn American Citizenship on Dec. 1, 1941.
In these letters we get to see at very close hand what the day to day life in war time America looked like. I do not think many Americans have any appreciation for how frequently American towns were re-energized, rebuilt and repopulated by the war effort. Also unknown to most American is the number of activities and work practices of American were re ordered by Government direction.
From farming techniques, to mine safety government provided leadership and direction to a degree no one of any contemporary political preference would credit. What seems to be the case is that industry, agriculture and medicine was stuck in a rut based on how things had always been done. Government agents, often representing the most advanced research and often having control of money and resources could direct the adoption of more efficient and desirable practices. Ultimately, it would be American ingenuity, American labor and American corporate leadership that made the miracle of American wartime production possible. This was also the most centralized, federal control of production that America would ever experience.
In these letters we get an outsiders clear and clearly affectionate view of wartime America. Mr. Cook would observe and comment on: small town main streets; the tent camps that provided homes for many thousands of relocated factory workers; and the previously unimaginably, huge production facilities would be built, often from dusty bare fields, Mr. Cooke gives us a sense of how Americans became the masters of wartime production.
This is a bare overview of the book. Mr. Cook can make sharp critical judgments, not all of them warmly congratulatory. This was Jim Crow America and the time of the Japanese internment camps. Remember too that he was driving before super highways or even the Eisenhower highways. He was in a vehicle not well adapted to long rough trips. At times his enthusiasm for his task is beaten down by the shear weariness of driving across a huge country.
I enjoyed this book, deeply. There may be better histories of the American home front in WWII. This is not a history. This is a personal view of America as written by a brand new American, speaking to his former countrymen.
Long after Alexis De Toqueville, and well before Andrei Codrescu, the one European who seemed to best understand America was Alistair Cooke. He first came to America on a student fellowship and in 1935 returned as a journalist for the BBC.
The letters and commentary represented in this book cover a sponsored tour and later travels of the US during World War II. It should be understood that at least one purpose for every piece in this collection is propaganda. He was charged with explaining to Britons who were under direct bombardment by the Germans what Americans were living through as part of their contribution to the war effort. Propaganda this may be, but it is also fair to point out that Mr. Cooke's love of America was sincerely heart felt.
British born Alistair Cooke would earn American Citizenship on Dec. 1, 1941.
In these letters we get to see at very close hand what the day to day life in war time America looked like. I do not think many Americans have any appreciation for how frequently American towns were re-energized, rebuilt and repopulated by the war effort. Also unknown to most American is the number of activities and work practices of American were re ordered by Government direction.
From farming techniques, to mine safety government provided leadership and direction to a degree no one of any contemporary political preference would credit. What seems to be the case is that industry, agriculture and medicine was stuck in a rut based on how things had always been done. Government agents, often representing the most advanced research and often having control of money and resources could direct the adoption of more efficient and desirable practices. Ultimately, it would be American ingenuity, American labor and American corporate leadership that made the miracle of American wartime production possible. This was also the most centralized, federal control of production that America would ever experience.
In these letters we get an outsiders clear and clearly affectionate view of wartime America. Mr. Cook would observe and comment on: small town main streets; the tent camps that provided homes for many thousands of relocated factory workers; and the previously unimaginably, huge production facilities would be built, often from dusty bare fields, Mr. Cooke gives us a sense of how Americans became the masters of wartime production.
This is a bare overview of the book. Mr. Cook can make sharp critical judgments, not all of them warmly congratulatory. This was Jim Crow America and the time of the Japanese internment camps. Remember too that he was driving before super highways or even the Eisenhower highways. He was in a vehicle not well adapted to long rough trips. At times his enthusiasm for his task is beaten down by the shear weariness of driving across a huge country.
I enjoyed this book, deeply. There may be better histories of the American home front in WWII. This is not a history. This is a personal view of America as written by a brand new American, speaking to his former countrymen.
July 17, 2015
Alistair Cooke, is the Brit who traded for American early in his career. From that point he became a keen observer of his adopted country. This is a "diary" of journeys taken as the USA enters into World War Two. As with all journeys, it is as much about time as it is about place.
It didn't take more than 20-30 pages into the book for me to realize how well Cooke had nailed down this fleeting period of Americana. He is mostly careful to avoid generalizations but he is concious of two fateful things that have blessed his effort. One, he is in Washington, D.C., at the moment of great challenge when Pearl Harbor is bombed; and, two, he is uniquely positioned "on this side of the pond" to explain America and Americans to his British audience. He seizes the moment (and continues to do so for another 50+ years with his great series, Letter to America).
He is aware of other foreigners who have attempted to take the measure of America, from de Toqueville on down, but he gets in his car and drives and writes his impressions. Is it "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose?" Perhaps, in the sense that some elements of American character change slowly at best. But, that isn't the point of Cooke's observations. His fresh eye, his determination to take small bites, and his openness to his adopted country are all fundamental to this work.
Sometimes a picture is better than 1000 words, and sometimes you need the words. Cooke is a wonderful example of the latter as he goes far in proving (to coin a phrase) "all America is local." This is the kind of history that needs to be read/discussed before college, yet the "civics" course that this book would most easily fit into is no longer part of the curriculum. Such a shame.
It didn't take more than 20-30 pages into the book for me to realize how well Cooke had nailed down this fleeting period of Americana. He is mostly careful to avoid generalizations but he is concious of two fateful things that have blessed his effort. One, he is in Washington, D.C., at the moment of great challenge when Pearl Harbor is bombed; and, two, he is uniquely positioned "on this side of the pond" to explain America and Americans to his British audience. He seizes the moment (and continues to do so for another 50+ years with his great series, Letter to America).
He is aware of other foreigners who have attempted to take the measure of America, from de Toqueville on down, but he gets in his car and drives and writes his impressions. Is it "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose?" Perhaps, in the sense that some elements of American character change slowly at best. But, that isn't the point of Cooke's observations. His fresh eye, his determination to take small bites, and his openness to his adopted country are all fundamental to this work.
Sometimes a picture is better than 1000 words, and sometimes you need the words. Cooke is a wonderful example of the latter as he goes far in proving (to coin a phrase) "all America is local." This is the kind of history that needs to be read/discussed before college, yet the "civics" course that this book would most easily fit into is no longer part of the curriculum. Such a shame.
April 19, 2014
I have loved Alistair Cooke ever since he introduced me to George Elliot. It was wonderful when my local NPR channel started playing the BBC World Service, and I could hear his letters from America.
So I had to read this.
Cooke’s travelogue was written during the start of America’s entry into the Second World War. It starts with Pearl Harbor and while the actually journey is roughly a year; the afterword extends it to the death of Roosevelt.
Loosely divided into regional sections, the book captures the Northern maple sugaring, the coast of West, the heat of the deserts, and the beauty of the south. Cooke drives and flies across America, the place of howling instead of grumbling. Cooke’s observations, as always, are part humor, part reportage, and all thought provoking.
A good portion of the travelogue is about the changes occurring because of the build up to the war. It isn’t just the industrialization but also the effect on farming and hospitably industry. For instance, he studies the hotels on the Florida coast and how they react to the housing of the Armed Forces. Or the worries about farming or the rubber deals.
And then there is the man who curses about the Japanese, and then Cooke discovers the man’s son was killed in the Pacific. There is the trip and interviews at the Japanese internment camps. Cooke’s view is nuanced, and far more revealing than what is taught in American history classes about the shameful episode.
If you have listened to Cooke speak, whether it be his Letter program or when he was hosting Masterpiece Theatre, this travelogue is just like that. In many ways, this book makes you realize just how much you miss his voice.
Booklikes.
So I had to read this.
Cooke’s travelogue was written during the start of America’s entry into the Second World War. It starts with Pearl Harbor and while the actually journey is roughly a year; the afterword extends it to the death of Roosevelt.
Loosely divided into regional sections, the book captures the Northern maple sugaring, the coast of West, the heat of the deserts, and the beauty of the south. Cooke drives and flies across America, the place of howling instead of grumbling. Cooke’s observations, as always, are part humor, part reportage, and all thought provoking.
A good portion of the travelogue is about the changes occurring because of the build up to the war. It isn’t just the industrialization but also the effect on farming and hospitably industry. For instance, he studies the hotels on the Florida coast and how they react to the housing of the Armed Forces. Or the worries about farming or the rubber deals.
And then there is the man who curses about the Japanese, and then Cooke discovers the man’s son was killed in the Pacific. There is the trip and interviews at the Japanese internment camps. Cooke’s view is nuanced, and far more revealing than what is taught in American history classes about the shameful episode.
If you have listened to Cooke speak, whether it be his Letter program or when he was hosting Masterpiece Theatre, this travelogue is just like that. In many ways, this book makes you realize just how much you miss his voice.
Booklikes.
September 11, 2020
I was disappointed in the book. I choose it as it was listed as a source by an author I respect and they thought highly of the work. I am a fan of Allister Cooke's radio work. I know the book was written in 1941-42 then rediscovered in 2006 in the weeks leading up to Cooke's passing. I suspect that this might not be the work that Cooke would have published if he had the time left for a final edit. His radio scripts have a much more finished feel to them.
February 11, 2023
Sometimes it is nice to travel back in time and see what was going on, in this case in America during the early years of WWII as seen through the eyes of an experienced journalist. I liked best when he was describing what he saw as he drove around the country, but less so when he seemed to be pontificating. He seemed to most often reflect the information gathered from the upper class and owners, and seemed to accept their attitudes. What stood out to me? That there was too much whining about not being able to find poorly-paid stoop laborers (who were off to war or taking better-paying jobs in war industries; that too many wealthy were greedily taking advantage of lining their pockets to the detriment of others; and that the war was helping to undermine established cultural norms. He seemed fixated on young girls. And a great deal of his reporting focused on agriculture. I got the feeling that he made too many assumptions about people in a region based less on the trip itself that his older experiences or what he had read about. Still, he was a good writer and I enjoyed taking the trip with him.
May 28, 2017
Alistair Cooke was in the United States as a correspondent for the Guardian when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He wanted to examine the effects of the war on ordinary Americans trying to live their lives in a very stressful time so he received permission and set out traveling around the country. This book is the result of that investigation. An interesting look at American society in the opening years of American involvement in World War II.
July 29, 2013
I loved Alistair Cooke, really who doesn't? This, not nearly as much as I had hoped. I will admit this is quite possibly due to that bane of my literary existence: expectations. And possibly the fact that I was listening to this in the car on a road trip ... I have a tendency to let my mind wander when listening to books on CD that coupled with a tendency to nod off in the car makes for a less than perfect "reading" environment. However, my shortcomings aside, I expected this to be something more like short stories, little vignettes of every day people slogging through every day life during WWII. There is a bit of that but not quite enough for this girl that loves a good story. There is beautiful, poetic language ... sometimes too much of it. And while I try not to judge the people of the past by present day standards I was a little appalled at certain biases rather shamelessly expressed. The man had some strong opinions. Many times it seemed as if he referred to certain problems again and again, housing shortages, race issues, juvenile delinquency, travel problems, shortages and so on without illuminating them sufficiently. How did he manage to get enough gasoline to travel the country? How about those retread tires? By juvenile delinquency did he mean those 15 & 16 year old girls hoping for a date/dance/something from soldiers passing through? Maybe my head was nodding through some of that or I was pondering the fact that though there had been multiple yellow signs warning us to watch out for wild burros we had seen nary a one but some things felt ... unfinished? insufficient?
I did like the section at the end where he talks a bit about how and why Europe could not understand Americans, their behaviors and(over)confident attitude, without having seen the United States for themselves. And I imagine, though I don't recall Mr. Cooke saying so, the reverse is most certainly true, how could we really understand what they were going through either? It reminded me a little bit of the first time I saw my British roommates passport - wow, she'd been to France and Spain and Italy and Germany with her middle class family, such exotic locations to me but that she pointed out were, to her, closer to the equivalent of traveling to Montana (from Washington state) to my family. Good things to keep in mind.
I did like the section at the end where he talks a bit about how and why Europe could not understand Americans, their behaviors and(over)confident attitude, without having seen the United States for themselves. And I imagine, though I don't recall Mr. Cooke saying so, the reverse is most certainly true, how could we really understand what they were going through either? It reminded me a little bit of the first time I saw my British roommates passport - wow, she'd been to France and Spain and Italy and Germany with her middle class family, such exotic locations to me but that she pointed out were, to her, closer to the equivalent of traveling to Montana (from Washington state) to my family. Good things to keep in mind.
November 7, 2019
This book was not what I expected - rather than highlighting American patriotism during WWII, Cooke takes an around-the-U.S. car/train trip and describes extensively the impact of America's entry into the war on domestic manufacturing, labor, housing, landscape, politics, etc., and very little on how the Americans felt about their sons/brothers/fathers fighting overseas. It is a fascinating read, particularly the foreshadowing of the U.S. military-industrial complex, our dependence on processed foods, housing issues in major cities, labor migration, and so many other topics. I loved the parts where Cooke sounds like a travel guide, and his descriptions of many parts of the country, the Northwest in particular, made me want to visit in the future. The odd grammatical style is the only element that kept this from five stars - the book is loaded with sentence fragments, and seems to have been written before the invention of the semicolon... I found the pace wonky, and frequently had to re-read sentences to get what Cooke was saying. But overall, this was a very pleasant surprise.
June 27, 2015
Although I was intrigued by the title and author of this book, I was initially disappointed when he spent the first half of the book east of the Mississippi. I'd wanted to know about the state of the roads at that time but Cooke spent time telling stories about what people were doing to gear up for the second world war. It wasn't a book I looked forward to reading. He spent little time on topics I wanted to read about. As books that I had previously ordered to read became available, I got distracted and I never felt like picking up this book again. I think I'm permanently distracted now. Perhaps later, I'll pick this book up again, but I'm not anxious to finish this book now. I feel a little bad about the rating, but I'm just not the reader for this one.
October 5, 2015
I found this book to be very unfulfilling. I guess, since it was written by Alistair Cooke, I was expecting more. Instead of getting a real feel of what the U.S. home front was experiencing during the war, it came across more as a travelogue of his trip reaching most states of the union in the early days of the war.
July 28, 2008
I haven't finished it yet but not really getting into in a big way yet!
August 13, 2022
When we think about the study of war, we generally confine our study to the battles that were fought. Sometimes we look into the biographies of the generals or the development of the weapons. Television has increased our capabilities by rendering in video reality what was once confined to dusty pages or rambling reminiscences by grizzled veterans. The video histories of Ken Burns and the movies like Saving Private Ryan, as well as the TV series like Band of Brothers and Combat, have shown what war was like for the soldiers, but few things have given us an understanding of what war meant for the ordinary citizen or society as a whole. This is exactly where Alistair Cooke's book fits into our understanding.
The book recounts a cross-country trip that Cooke made as a young reporter in the years 1941-1942. Given wartime restrictions, it was an amazing journey (and would still be so today). With keen insight, he describes the different regions of the country on several levels. He writes of geography, flora, fauna, and more importantly of people's attitudes. Written some sixty years ago (and then lost until shortly before his death), the book is a snapshot in time. In our supposedly more enlightened (and politically correct) times, he would probably not have written in the way he did. He writes with honesty about racial attitudes against blacks, the Japanese, Jews, Filipinos, Mexicans, and the American Indian (which we would now call indigenous peoples). One does not get the impression that he holds these attitudes himself, but he is simply reporting what he saw and heard in the language in which it came.
It seems to me that the America that Cooke discovered is not so different from the America of today. There are people willing to sacrifice for the greater good; there are people who make the sacrifice while complaining about it, and there are people who resent having any limits put upon their mode of living. If one were to recreate Cooke's journey, there would be differences to be found, but I think the similarities would be much greater. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a more complete picture of America during the Second World War.
The book recounts a cross-country trip that Cooke made as a young reporter in the years 1941-1942. Given wartime restrictions, it was an amazing journey (and would still be so today). With keen insight, he describes the different regions of the country on several levels. He writes of geography, flora, fauna, and more importantly of people's attitudes. Written some sixty years ago (and then lost until shortly before his death), the book is a snapshot in time. In our supposedly more enlightened (and politically correct) times, he would probably not have written in the way he did. He writes with honesty about racial attitudes against blacks, the Japanese, Jews, Filipinos, Mexicans, and the American Indian (which we would now call indigenous peoples). One does not get the impression that he holds these attitudes himself, but he is simply reporting what he saw and heard in the language in which it came.
It seems to me that the America that Cooke discovered is not so different from the America of today. There are people willing to sacrifice for the greater good; there are people who make the sacrifice while complaining about it, and there are people who resent having any limits put upon their mode of living. If one were to recreate Cooke's journey, there would be differences to be found, but I think the similarities would be much greater. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a more complete picture of America during the Second World War.
September 22, 2020
I reread this book because of the challenging times the country is going through today and my suspicion of the self-aggrandizing "we all helped each other through this" nonsense that will surely be read a half century from now. It's wonderful to get a fresh, no-BS picture of how this country really works in a crisis rather than the "Greatest Generation", everyone-was-a-patriot-and-behind-the-war nonsense that you see and hear from most sources. From women getting quickie marriages to soldiers heading to dangerous assignments in hope of getting benefits to farmers complaining that people going off to help in a war effort to help "those people" to propagandists and war profiteers Cooke covers it all. A must-read for anyone interested in the real 20th century history of the United States.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 28, 2019
An observational view by famed BBC contributor and commentator, Alistair Cook of a moment in time as the United States gears up for World War II. Cook's observations are documented in travelogue style as he writes about his views on how America is rapidly adapting to a war footing in manufacturing, agriculture, and a sea change in American society in its resolve to win a war. Reading this book I couldn't help but reflect on the supposedly quote (although never proven) by Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto shortly after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor when he feared that by the attack on U.S. Territory, a sleeping giant has awakened. Alistair Cook documents the almost overnight transformation of America awakening to a war footing shortly after the United States declared war on Japan and Germany.
May 13, 2020
I am embarassed to say I never heard of Alistair Cooke, a Brit who had a series of programs on America for the BBC. Even though this was written by Cooke in the form of notes in 41-42, it was not made into a book until after he died. Really good descriptive prose and colorful narrative for parts of our country and how each area responded to the war effort. You forget that money is behind a lot of things and industries and products were chosed by the US Govt. (and other products were not). There were winners and losers, not all losers as we have been told. Some regions prospered during the war and others floundered, based on what was needed for both domestic and the war effort. Good learning experience.
August 28, 2023
In his final years, this was found among Cooke's writings. It chronicles a driving tour he took of the US to report internationally about how the war was impacting life in various parts here. It is very descriptive, but I have learned so much about which I have never heard--like that Lend-lease was not just weapons and airplanes, but food and clothing. When he drove through Hartford, he learned about how the war was insured. The migration of the population for work is also interesting. And no political correctness!
This is a perspective I’ve never seen in the hundreds of books about World War II that I’ve read.
This is a perspective I’ve never seen in the hundreds of books about World War II that I’ve read.
August 29, 2024
I read Cooke’s ‘American Journey’ shortly after reading Priestley’s ‘English Journey’. Describing journeys about 10 years apart, they have some similarities, although Priestley is writing of the depression and Cooke of an America transformed by war. There’s a difference in style, Priestley is direct, Cooke more elliptical and sometimes unclear. Cooke is almost as good as Priestley when he stops to focus on a town or an industry or an issue, but Cooke’s book has, for me, too much on the scenery and the details of the journey. Despite this criticism, there’s much to enjoy in Cooke’s account of the USA changing for war.
October 7, 2019
I know who Alistair Cooke is (unfortunately my biggest memory is watching Cookie Monster impersonate him as I watched Sesame Street with my daughters!) but I was not all that familiar with his work. Nevertheless I had heard of this book so I bought it when it came up in a history book email not really knowing that he actually wrote this during WWII but that it was not published until 2007. It is dated in some ways and also incredibly up to date perhaps because we Americans are still discussing/arguing about some of the same topics: race relations, American industry (and the loss of it), American housing, immigration. It was not a fast reading book but it was a book that kept me reading.
November 29, 2023
I was anxious to read this book, as I recall watching and listening to Alistair Cook many years ago, and thought he was a British-version of Walter Cronkite, intelligent and well respected.
As the author travels around the US, this book claims to report on America's preparation for and opinions on WWII. However, the book does not contain much worthwhile reporting on the country's war effort. It contains long, tedious paragraphs and extreme, detailed descriptions on the landscape, geography and local events, making it boring and difficult to read. He seems to go off on tangents in a cryptic, overly wordy style, so I wondered what exactly am I reading about.
As the author travels around the US, this book claims to report on America's preparation for and opinions on WWII. However, the book does not contain much worthwhile reporting on the country's war effort. It contains long, tedious paragraphs and extreme, detailed descriptions on the landscape, geography and local events, making it boring and difficult to read. He seems to go off on tangents in a cryptic, overly wordy style, so I wondered what exactly am I reading about.
March 5, 2025
Well this was a treat. A long-lost manuscript of Alastair Cooke travelling around the USA during World War 2 recounting how America and Americans are adapting to the war effort. A beautiful travelogue with lots of insightful analysis and philosophising. The writing is so good that at times it is poetic. What comes across strongly is how diverse and powerful America is. Woe to any country that underestimates it, then or now! And near the end, his account of Roosevelt's death was magisterial and timeless
December 20, 2020
A vague and amorphous book, not at all satisfying. Mostly babbling on philosophically at length. Interestingly I'd just read another writers trip around the USA. By Road across the U.S.A. by Robert Bell (1963). Much more interesting, more details and more real contact with people. Bell puts Cooke to shame, it's no wonder this book was consigned to the attic and left unpublished until Cooke became famous and almost on his deathbed.
August 9, 2023
Discovered in a cluttered closet shortly before the author’s death, the book’s manuscript had been finished in 1945, but never published … a unique record of Cooke’s 1942 auto trip around and across the United States to gage American participation in the war effort … with tales of industrial overhaul, the woes of farmers, and housing shortfalls, all set against a backdrop of late winter and early spring, the writer produces a cultural snapshot of a nation at the crossroads …
July 28, 2023
On the Homefront
This book is a gem. Alistair Cooke, one of the greatest British journalists began a cross country tour of America in 1942. He chronicles America just after we entered the war. While sympathetic to America, he is not without criticism. This record of the people and the land is window to the past. There is much to learned and enjoyed in this book.
This book is a gem. Alistair Cooke, one of the greatest British journalists began a cross country tour of America in 1942. He chronicles America just after we entered the war. While sympathetic to America, he is not without criticism. This record of the people and the land is window to the past. There is much to learned and enjoyed in this book.
June 12, 2019
Is it shameful that I really wish someone other than Alistair’s son narrated this?
My Full Review
My Full Review
September 12, 2017
3.9999999999999999999999999
November 20, 2017
This sheds interesting light on things happening in the US during pre/post WWII. I want to listen to it again.
November 4, 2018
Excellant Travel Log Mostly 1942. Learned a few things about that time in American History
April 21, 2021
I did not finish this book or get very far. I think it would have been an interesting story but I’d get
bored reading to find the good parts.
bored reading to find the good parts.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews