When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II

by Molly Guptill Manning

Overview

This New York Times bestselling account of books parachuted to soldiers during WWII is a “cultural history that does much to explain modern America” (USA Today).

When America entered World War II in 1941, we faced an enemy that had banned and burned 100 million books. Outraged librarians launched a campaign to send free books to American troops, gathering 20 million hardcover donations. Two years later, the War Department and the publishing industry stepped in with an extraordinary program: 120 million specially printed paperbacks designed for troops to carry in their pockets and rucksacks in every theater of war.

These small, lightweight Armed Services Editions were beloved by the troops and are still fondly remembered today. Soldiers read them while waiting to land at Normandy, in hellish trenches in the midst of battles in the Pacific, in field hospitals, and on long bombing flights. This pioneering project not only listed soldiers’ spirits, but also helped rescue The Great Gatsby from obscurity and made Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, into a national icon.

“A thoroughly engaging, enlightening, and often uplifting account . . . I was enthralled and moved.” — Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried

“Whether or not you’re a book lover, you’ll be moved.” — Entertainment Weekly

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780544535176
Publisher:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date:	06/11/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	299
Sales rank:	221,024
File size:	11 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Molly Guptill Manning is a staff attorney at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and sits on the board of editors of the Federal Bar Council Quarterly. She earned a BA and MA in American history from the University at Albany and a JD at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. She lives in Manhattan with her husband.

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

1 A Phoenix Will Rise 1

2 $85 Worth of Clothes, but No Pajamas 17

3 A Landslide of Books 31

4 New Weapons in the War of Ideas 59

5 Grab a Book, Joe, and Keep Goin' 75

6 Guts, Valor, and Extreme Bravery 92

7 Like Rain in the Desert 113

8 Censorship and FDR's F - th T - m 133

9 Germany's Surrender and the Godforsaken Islands 151

10 Peace at Last 170

11 Damned Average Raisers 181

Afterword 193

Acknowledgments 195

Appendixes

A Banned Authors 198

B Armed Services Editions 202

Notes 233

Index 261

Editorial Reviews

Heartwarming war stories aren't easy to come by, especially if they insist on being entirely realistic about the hellishness of military life. But Molly Guptill Manning's When Books Went to War winds up feeling like the bibliophile's equivalent of It's a Wonderful Life.

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

"WhenBooks Went to War is a thoroughly engaging, enlightening, and often uplifting account of America's counterattack against Nazi Germany's wholesale burning of books. During World War II, the U.S. government, along with librarians and publishers, dispatched millions of books to American GIs, sailors, and flyers, using the written word itself as a powerful reply to tyranny, thought control, absolutism, and perverse ideology. I was enthralled and moved." — Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried "Intriguing . . . A fresh perspective on the trials of war and the power of books." — Kirkus Reviews "Well written, carefully researched, and drawing upon primary sources and news articles, this book brings to life a little-known part of World War II culture. VERDICT: Highly readable and extremely appealing, this book is perfect for any bibliophile or historians interested in the stories from the home front." — Library Journal "Delightful...Engrossing...Manning's entertaining account will have readers nostalgic for that seemingly distant era when books were high priority." — Publishers Weekly “[A] crisply written and compelling new history of America’s effort to comfort and inspire its soldiers with good books . . . Manning's When Books Went to War is both a tribute to the civilizing influence of books and a careful account of what it took – a lot – to ensure that U.S. fighting men had the right stuff to read. . . Manning's portrait of this seemingly prosaic slice of the war effort is more than colorful; it's also a cultural history that does much to explain modern America.”  — USA Today.com "Whether or not you're a book lover, you'll be moved by the impeccably researched tale. Manning not only illuminates a dusty slice of WWII history that most of us know nothing about but also reminds us, in the digital era of movies and TV, just how powerfully literature once figured in people's lives. Grade: A." — Entertainment Weekly —

From the Publisher

Narrator Bernadette Dunne energetically delivers the audiobook of how the U.S. and its Allies defeated the book burners during WWII. What hasn’t been known until this book came along was that we did it partly by giving books to every GI who wanted them. This not only gave the soldiers something to do but also strengthened the publishing industry and reinforced the idea that reading is a vital activity for an educated citizenry. The program, like the war, turned out to have positive long-term effects on the country. Dunne varies her husky pitch and tone, enunciating every word. She doesn’t have to create any characters, as the book is narrative history, but she does highlight the sources and sets them apart through pauses and changes in emphasis. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2015 - AudioFile