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The Greatest Generation

The Greatest Generation

List Price: $24.95
Your Price: $16.47
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Gift For Dad!
Review: To me, this is a great way to show gratitude for your father. I think sometimes fathers get overlooked, especially from this generation where they were truly warriors raising their family. Give them something that shows your proud of your herritage. jerry

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: AWESOME
Review: Let's look at the facts about this "Greatest Generation". They endured during the two greatest challenges this country has faced: The Great Depression, & World War II. They didn't ask for it. They only played the hand that they were dealt, and they made the most of it. They created the great economic boom that we enjoy today. I salute them. They are true heroes. Tom Brokaw's book will help us to never forget them.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Inspiring. The book was a wake up call for me.
Review: It may sound corny to some but the people described in this book represented the values of the majority in their time. It's only because of them and hundreds of thousands like them in the U.S and other countries, that Americans enjoy the riches and freedoms that we take for granted today. The book could have been large enough to fill up a good size library. However, Tom Brokaw did an excellent job of choosing a good cross-section of the country. I was impressed with his own insights to that time and got the feeling that his words were from the heart. As the son of a waist gunner on B-17's and POW who never spoke of the War until his last few years, I whole heartedly agree with the title of this book.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Misses a major irony...
Review: With numbing regularity, Brokaw and his news colleagues trash 1990s young people, apparently unaware that the youth of the 1930s, the "greatest generation," were relentlessly trashed by the media, scholars, and politicians of their day as a cesspool of bad values, promiscuity, criminality, terminal apathy, drugs, welfare, and laziness. Maybe Brokaw should pause to reflect before regurgitating the latest "kids today" bashing his profession (and my academic one) specialize in.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A different look at history.
Review: This book takes a look at a variety of people as they were affected by WWII. It tells how they went to war, the price they paid, and how they returned to lead productive lives. The viewpoint of a newsman gives it a refreshing treatment. Thank you, Mr Brokaw.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Overrated
Review: I too was very excited when I spied "The Greatest Generation" on the shelf. Tom Brokaw always struck me as a dignified, articulate and down to earth man (on the book jacket he sports a $69 Casio watch). I still feel that way, but I don't think he's a great author or historian.

The book is an easy read. I found myself uplifted from the stories of those who came from obscure backgrounds, stared with little, faced adversity and yet managed to rise to great achievement.

About halfway through I got tired of the brass band blasting my head about how special this generation is. I got tired of hearing the oft repeated lines: "...well I guess that's just the way I was brought up...", "...it was special back then...", "...I pulled myself up from my bootstraps...", "...I guess this generation doesn't have those values anymore...", "...we had the war to define us...". Enough. It becomes like a lawn mower with a stuck throttle.

I don't want to take laurels from those folks in the "greatest generation" but this is too much. I read Andy Rooney's, "My War". Andy is unpretnetuous and his book gives you a feel what it was like to live back then without being heavy handed or pretentuous. Rooney's chapter in Brokaw's book hits what bothers me about "The Greatest Generation". The "greatest generation" had the fortune of a great depression to humble, and a world war to steel them. The war gave them the opportunity to see the world, and its horrors. It gave them a cruicible to rapidly mature. And because they happened to be born on the winning side, they got to enjoy the riches of the victory in America. Yes, they were special, only because that's they happened to be born during such an interesting time. Who is to say my children could not do the same? Other generations have made great marks (the folks who fought the civil war and then reconstructed America come to mind), but where is the brass band for them? Basically Rooney says today's generation is no worse compared to his. He is right.

If you take "The Greatest Generation" as a compilation of uplifting stories from everyday individuals it makes a nice book. But, that is not what's going on here. At the end of "The Greatest Generation" I can only hear "Looky at us yuppies, twenty-somethings, whipper snappers, we're great and you're not!"

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: utterly underwhelming
Review: This book has received a lot of attention and is selling well---but that's a testament to the power of the marketing machine that's been fired up behind it, not to the book itself. Search back articles from the Wall Street Journal if you want to read about how the marketing was done. You'll learn very little from reading the book itself, though.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A very simplistic telling of a few stories from WW2.
Review: This book is written in the same manner as the news is read on television, in little sound bites. There is not much "meat" in the brief stories included. Brokaw chose to include political correctness which made me wonder why he called it "The Greatest Generation". He manages to tarnish that generation by judging historical events using today's values. Overall I thought the book rather boring.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: FANTASTIC!
Review: As a baby boomer of WWII, I enjoyed "The Greatest Generation" very much. I even shared the book w/several Vets of WWII (men & women), which they enjoyed it also. I would have shared it w/my father if he were alive today. I didn't realize the descrimination that went on; but I'm glad they 'stuck it out'.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: wonderful reading
Review: Why do they abridge audio tapes of wonderful books? It's a crime and punishment to endure.


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