Modern Good Reads discussion

Are there any WWII fans out there. I love reading about the bravery of The Greatest Generation.

Ogh yes there are many WW2 fans out there. The question I have to ask, why do you think it was the greatest generation? Bravery yes, greatest generation never. A war that cost more than 40 million in casualties, led by men without conscience cannot signify the greatest generation!

R. Grey wrote: "Are there any WWII fans out there. I love reading about the bravery of The Greatest Generation."

I agree with Grey; they truly were the Greatest Generation. If there is such a thing as a just war then WW2 was that. If the two great democratic nations of that time hadn't taken a stand we would now be living either in a Fascist or a Communist dominated world. Anyone who complains about the imperfections of the democratic system should read what it was like to live under Hitler or Stalin. It was men like Grey's father and millions like him who stepped up and made the difference.

I lived there, democratic nations with the will to kill, ask the civilians of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Ask the Allied forces from the East. The greatest generation that ever lived, that is laughable. Brave men yes, but never the greatest. I wore a uniform for a long time and no one that has not been there and done what he was told should sit in judgement. But then it is a free world out there, we can talk and act however we like within the confinements of laws. But again maybe we have to ask the pilot of the 'Enola Gay' if he was part of the greatest generation?

Erich wrote: "Ogh yes there are many WW2 fans out there. The question I have to ask, why do you think it was the greatest generation? Bravery yes, greatest generation never. A war that cost more than 40 million ..."

It was 56 million, and the "Greatest Generation" didn't start that war so I don't see how you can hold that against them. They were also the generation that lived through the Great Depression, and many also witnessed World War I. Having witnessed the age of extremes, destroyed one of said extremes, and lived to tell about it, seems like quite the accomplishment to me.

But of course, I'm not totally disagreeing with you. That particular generation also committed their share of terrible crimes, such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as you aptly pointed out. And when they came home and demanded peace and quiet, it meant burying the issues of racial tolerance and women's rights.

Oh, and their policy of children being "seen and not heard" was one of the main obstacles to progress being made by the following generation as well. Not perfect by any means, but they did demonstrate incredible courage and stalwart characters, even if they were people of their time.

The question was...the greatest generation...of what! If we are talking of generations are you talking of the American gene pool? Because generation encompass a worldwide spectrum. And there were many before the Vikings landed in New Foundland and Christopher Columbus crossed the Sargasso Sea. So you must specify a era, century or just the world. In unsaid words you tout the exploits during the WW2 of western Allies, the rescuers of, one claimed, Democracy, Freedoms of the individual. At this point the USA still has a large racial intolerance, a religious intolerance for many. So if you insist the years from 35 to 45 spawned the greatest generation, I will humour you, let you keep your belief. I still prefer the old Greeks, masters of Democracy and founders of the greatest Library of Alexandria!

Erich wrote: "The question was...the greatest generation...of what! If we are talking of generations are you talking of the American gene pool? Because generation encompass a worldwide spectrum. And there were m..."

Google "Greatest Generation." Read the Wikepedia article. They're not saying it was literally the greatest generation. That was a coined phrase, and the OT used it to signify what everyone else understands to be an identifier of a time period.

Generation, first described by the old Greek philosophers. The time period where people are alive during a common life span. My fathers generation ended with his death and my generation took over. It implies that a few thousand generation have passed! So to call the era of the great wars the greatest generation is very much a assumption by few! Generations span continents and millennia and if you take the past century as having borne the greatest, well, it was not!

In his 1998 book The Greatest Generation, Tom Brokaw wrote "it is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced." He argued that these men and women fought not for fame and recognition, but because it was the "right thing to do". When they came back they rebuilt America into a superpower.

I witnessed first hand what my family and other members of that generation went through, and for that reason, I agree with Mr. Brokaw's assessment.

Erich wrote: "The question was...the greatest generation...of what! If we are talking of generations are you talking of the American gene pool? Because generation encompass a worldwide spectrum. And there were m..."

Yes, I was referring to that segment of the world population. The "Greatest Generation" specifically refers to the Anglo-American generation that fought WWII and survived the Great Depression. If that was unclear to you, then I'm not sure what to say. Clearly you're not on the same page as Mr. Grey, who started this forum. Do you really need for me to say "I refer only to those who post-Columbian Americans and British people who lived for the years between 35 and 45"?

And what's more, I'm not saying these people were the greatest to ever be born, so don't feel the need to "humor me". I was simply contesting your notion that this generation was responsible for WWII and the other accusations you made against them. In reality, you were being far too broad, which is why I felt the need to narrow it down. Though apparently I didn't narrow it down enough.

And fyi, the "old Greeks" weren't so great either by the standards you've set. They practiced slavery, had a very rigid system of citizenship, and believed wholeheartedly in their own superiority. It wasn't until Alexander the Great that this snobbery against mixing with foreigners ended, and that came at the cost of several million lives. And the Library of Alexandria was built by the Ptolemaic Greeks, a Hellenized Egyptian people. For someone who needs specificity, simply saying "old Greeks" is pretty broad too.

You're kind of all over the place there, really.

As an author who has written a book on my mother's survival of the Holocaust, In the Face of Evil, I can tell you that for her the Allied Forces that rescued her were, indeed, the Greatest Generation! They fought knowing that they might not survive, yet they were willing to go to their deaths to save the world and stop the evil that threatened to obliterate it. They were righteous in their belief that unmitigated evil must be destroyed no matter what the cost.

My father was on a ship on his way to invade Japan when the Enola Gay bombed Hiroshima and ended the war. He knew without a doubt that he would probably not survive the invasion, but he also knew that what he was fighting for was worth the cost. Had the United States not dropped that bomb which, of course, was a terrible tragedy, we would have lost 250,000 American men in the invasion. It is terrible to realize that a bomb that killed so many civilians was necessary, or that one can be glad that it was deployed, but I am. Without it my father and probably many of your fathers, grandfathers, or brothers would not have survived.

So, for me, without a doubt, this was and will always be "The Greatest Generation".

Tema wrote: "As an author who has written a book on my mother's survival of the Holocaust, In the Face of Evil, I can tell you that for her the Allied Forces that rescued her were, indeed, the Greatest Generati..."

Good reminders, Tema. I also want to raise, since Erich asked, that the pilot flying the Enola Gay and the crew were interviewed about what they had done and were asked how they felt about it. Naturally, they answered in the same way that all who were involved did. The bomb was a terrible thing, but it ended the war and spared the lives of countless people who would have died in a landed invasion.

What's more, it was hard for them to feel bad about dropping a bomb that killed 50,000 people when every pilot in the Pacific was conducting fire bombings of Japanese cities. The fire bombing campaign of Tokyo killed 100,000 Japanese people alone. But considering the million of Chinese, South East Asians and Polynesians that the Japanese Imperial Army brutally murdered, raped and tortured during their campaign across the Pacific, this was hardly seen as a bad thing either.

One has to remember that this was the era of total war, and for most of those fighting it, they didn't ask for it or like it. But they damn well knew who started it and the kinds of atrocities they had committed. Hence, they had no illusions over what it would take to end it. It's easy for future generations to look back with revisionist eyes and criticize, but that's a luxury we have which they did not.

You just counted off the atrocities of that era...you still think this was the greatest generation....if you , you just defeated your own rhetoric!

Erich wrote: "You just counted off the atrocities of that era...you still think this was the greatest generation....if you , you just defeated your own rhetoric!"

Only if I were to take the same judgmental and generalized tone you do. Like I said before , there is a difference between those who started WWII, committed the greatest atrocities of history, and continually escalated it with crimes against civilians, and those who chose fought back and did terrible things because they had. I would have though we had been specific enough for you to understand who we meant by "Greatest Generation", but I guess we weren't.

And I notice you still haven't responded to my challenge about your love of the "Old Greeks". Why the forgiving tone with them and the willingness to be so broad, but the harsh, hardliner tone for those who lived through the first half of the 20th century?

This is a senseless conversation, the greatest generation, by this you mean 'American' right. A generation that was 45% illiterate, a generation that killed a JFK, A martin Luther King, a generation that treated Afro American as chattels. A generation that you claim to be the greatest because your mother thinks so. I truly feel sorry for you because this is not something your children will benefit from. Ptolemy was a Greek General that build the greatest Library of its times, the Greek had public schools to teach writing and law. All this at a time when the rest od the world was still using runs. But then again, American have never understood cultural achievements by others. Achievements that are still in use today...

Erich wrote: "This is a senseless conversation, the greatest generation, by this you mean 'American' right. A generation that was 45% illiterate, a generation that killed a JFK, A martin Luther King, a generatio..."

As I already explained, the "Greatest Generation" refers to all those who fought against Hitler, the Nazis, and Fascism in general and survived the Great Depression. Not just Americans. Did you even read my comments, or are you selectively blind? And you feel sorry for me? That's a joke. In one breath, you selectively bring up an the faults of an entire generation while ignoring their accomplishments. In the next, you glorify people with the same kind of ethnocentric arguments you criticize the "Greatest Generation" for having.

And let's not forget the blatant generalizations you're making. The whole reason the Civil Rights movement emerged was because of the challenges mounted against segregation by people in the "Greatest Generation", people such as the Tuskekee Airmen, Eleanor Roosevelt, and reformists and progressives who viewed these polices as immoral and unjust.

Oh, and as for your assessments that the Greeks were so advanced while rest of world was using "runs" - by which I can only assume you mean runes - talk about an ethnocentric argument! Not to mention contradictory to your main point. The Library of Alexandria benefited from texts and learning gathered from all over the Near East, not just Greece! Like I said, it was Alexander's conquest's that ended Greek snobbery and opened up their culture to the fact that there were civilizations that were millennia older than their own which possessed wisdom they did not. Hence why the collection was so valuable. And it was the Egyptians under Ptolemy who built it and gathered the knowledge, not a bunch of Greek nationals.

For a person who rails against bigotry, you sure love to condone it, so long as its classical in nature and not American. Can you not see your own hypocrisy here? You define generation literally to refer to those in the Greatest one, but use it so vaguely when it comes to the Greeks. You condemn the Greatest Generation for bigotry that existed in their time, but completely gloss over that which existed in the Greeks time.

Oh, and if you bothered to do your homework, you would notice I'm not American. I'm Canadian, not that it makes a difference to you. Just another assumption and oversight you made during your rambling attack on the "Greatest Generation" and those who don't condemn them as you do.

Wow, my comment about the Greatest Generation sure ignited a fire storm. My intention was to spark conversation about historical fiction books about WWII. I don't want this forum to degenerate into a platform for debating philosophical differences, so I will delete any further messages that do not involve historical fiction books.

R. Grey wrote: "Wow, my comment about the Greatest Generation sure ignited a fire storm. My intention was to spark conversation about historical fiction books about WWII. I don't want this forum to degenerate into..."

Thank you, Grey. It's a shame when simple topics elicit vitriol from self-important flamers. I wish I had a title to offer. My repertoire for historical fiction is limited to alternate history, which I fear has already been covered in another forum. If I'm not mistaken, you have something to do with that one, don't you? ;)

I used to be quite a WW2 buff. I still enjoy reading narrative nonfiction about it. Antony Beevor has written books on Stalingrad, D-Day and Berlin. He's really gotten me into the Eastern Front. Speaking of which, are there any good Ostfront novels out there? Russian or German perspective, doesn't particularly matter. Both are equally fascinating / heartbreaking.

Oh, I just thought of one. The War of the Rats, which is the true story about Vasily Zaytsev and the basis of the movie "Enemy at the Gates". But of course, the movie took some grand old liberties with the story. Still, the book is still a good read and relatively historically accurate.

Matthew wrote: "R. Grey wrote: "Wow, my comment about the Greatest Generation sure ignited a fire storm. My intention was to spark conversation about historical fiction books about WWII. I don't want this forum to..."

Matthew wrote: "R. Grey wrote: "Wow, my comment about the Greatest Generation sure ignited a fire storm. My intention was to spark conversation about historical fiction books about WWII. I don't want this forum to..."

Matthew, yes I am the moderator of the alternate history discussion. Please join in that discussion line.

T.K. wrote: "Speaking of which, are there any good Ostfront novels out there? Russian or German perspective, doesn't particularly matter. Both are equally fascinating / heartbreaking."

Just recently a friend who I used to work with released a book on Amazon called The Last Field Marshal . I haven't read it yet (I only found out about it because his partner mentioned it to my wife(!), but it's already got a couple of solid reviews on Amazon. Bob's an amateur historian with a huge interest in the European theatre of the Second World War, and he would have brought all of that knowledge to his first novel.

Like I said, I haven't yet read it, so I don't want to boost it too much, but by all reports it's a solid read (and, I just found out, available free for today!).

R. Grey wrote: "Matthew wrote: "R. Grey wrote: "Wow, my comment about the Greatest Generation sure ignited a fire storm. My intention was to spark conversation about historical fiction books about WWII. I don't wa..."

Oh I did. Had little to offer beyond what everyone already said. You know, Harry Turtledove, Philip K Dick, and Robert Harris.

I would like to suggest a novel about a WWII Nazi that assumes a new persona, name and life after the war. It is a chilling well researched recounting of the war through the perception of one of the perpetrators. I could not put it down. The book entitled, The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell was originally published in French and is at 900 pages, a tour de force. However, it is certainly mesmerizing.

If there is any authors out there that has written books on WWII, Vietnam, The Civil War please contact me. As a disabled Navy Veteran i am looking for books to read.

WWII is my preferred genre when I am reading history. I just recently restarted Amy at Dawn (I read it about 10 years ago) as a prelude to reading a bunch of books on the Africa Campaign.

One of the best series about the Navy in WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_...

I highly recommend "The War (An Intimate History 1941 - 1945)" by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns.

It contains narratives of the major (and some not so major) events that took place during this four-year period.
Each narrative is accompanied by photographs and personal comments from a member of the military and/or a civilian who were directly affected by the specific event being highlighted.

I think the only books I've read which are related to WWII would be The Diary of a Young Girl and The Book Thief. Both were spectacular!

I'd love to recommend my incredibly moving award winning novel based on my mother's survival of the Holocaust entitled In the Face of Evil. It will immerse you in that tragic world and then lift your heart and spirit with its ultimate redemption.

This book written by by father and now republished in e-book form is very evocative of the WW1 as well as bringing alive the contrast to everyday life on the home front

1. Book title: Gunstocks and Dovetails
2. Dates of Deal: October 29th to November 5th/ reduced from $2.99 to $0.99
3. Genre classification – Historical fiction
4. Short blurb:

Young wheelwright Abey Stoughton leaves rural Oxfordshire and is drawn into the maelstrom of the First World War. As a soldier in the Medical Corps he sees the suffering of the wounded, attempts an escape into the world of the French civilians still living in the area, and is involved in an episode on 'secret service' with unexpected consequences.

The war makes a rift in Abey's life which causes a change of direction after he comes back to Nether Oldston, rural life and the wheelwright's shop. This involves him in the new ideas of the 1920s, and training as a furniture craftsman, before the pattern of his future unfolds.

First published in 2000 by Tabb House, 7 Church Street, Padstow, Cornwall, PL28 8BG, UK, this e-book edition is reproduced with their kind permission (Original ISBN 1 873051 33 7)

5. Buy link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J6FQKQS

There is no such thing as the greatest generation, throughout human history there were brave, conscientious, brilliant and heroic men and woman and there were also cowardly, stupid, conscious less and mean spirited ones as well. Lives were handed to the gods of war in a mindless manner and so a whole generation of youth was almost extinguished during the wars to end all wars. Therefore the first and second world wars were wars of futility, no one nation really won and the world of man lost. However this doesn't prevent me from enjoying stories from those two wars, one where both my grandfathers joined armies to defend their countries and the second that finished just before I was born. The greatest generation has yet to be born, they will be the generation who will look back at history and solve the mistakes of the past.

I like Grace's thoughts, and I only wish they were true. That "great generation" is, I fear, not to come. We are given free will, and war is what we do with it. We are so good at hating, so bad at empathizing. I too am of her age. Relatively speaking, I think my parents' was the greatest generation. I honor their sacrifices and their endurance. As naive as it may sound, I think they were "on the side of the angels."
Historical note: The First World War was indeed a mindless waste of life. The Second World War had to be.

I personally believe that The Greatest Generation is given that title because so many millions of them were directly impacted by World War II; both on the battlefields and the home front.

As a direct result of so many having to endure the emotional and physical challenges generated by the war and its aftermath, most had a profound appreciation for life and particulary the freedoms and physical comforts enjoyed in the United States. They were so thankful for just being alive and relieved of the demands of a massive, prolonged war, that they tended to live more productive and fulfilling lives. They had learned to appreciate all of the little things that previous and current generations so often have taken for granted.

I wonder, what do the Chinese, Vietnamese, Burmese, and Koreans who were living under the Japanese occupation think about the atomic bomb being dropped?

Stan wrote: "I wonder, what do the Chinese, Vietnamese, Burmese, and Koreans who were living under the Japanese occupation think about the atomic bomb being dropped?"

Not to mention the hundreds of thousands U.S. troops who had been designated to invade the Japanese mainland; 20% of whom were projected to be killed or wounded during the campaign.

My Dad was a proponent of the Second World War, why you ask, it's because he was unable to join, though he did try from the time of his sixteenth birthday. He couldn't join for two reasons, the first because he was hard of hearing and secondly because he was the only son of his farming family. He worked in the mines and also on the farm and when the war was over went north to help the places that were bombed. Darwin and some other towns. he was the greatest patriot I ever met and probably the reason I joined the military at eighteen, his remarkable historical memory was a family pride, he could recite verbatim speeches made by Australian Prime Ministers and he told stories of the Great Depression and the Second World War. He described the world as defeated and it was the duty of all men to repair it, since then he has been remarkably severe on all the generations since but he was also severe on all proceeding generations, he was a man of his time but he never ever described his generation as great. He did however have a ferocious appetite for stories out of the Second World War where many of his mates died. My hope is always for peace and enlightment and a cessation to all wars and a future of light and hope.....