A Five Star re-read

A few days ago, the spousal unit talked about a great documentary he’d seen on television, about World War Two, and the little known atrocities that occurred in the Ukraine. It brought to mind the book I read many years ago by Studs Terkel, which I’d long since forgotten so I pulled it off its shelf, blew off the dust, metaphorically speaking, and began re-reading it.

My interest, albeit indistinct, began when I was a young girl and lived in Italy. My knowledge of that war only skims the surface, but enough for me to have gathered a few books on the subject over the years. This one in particular is my favorite.

This book chronicles’ WW2 through the oral interviews of some of the ones who survived it. A historical narrative that can be read where it falls open never missing a beat of the integrity of what was before or what comes after. The sound of human sameness through the many collective voices that sing through its pages is melodious.

Studs Terkel was a master interviewer. A rare and attentive listener. The likes of which has never even come close. If you only read one book about World War Two, it MUST be this one.

 "It was one war that many who would have resisted 'your other wars' supported enthusiastically, it was a 'just war', if there is any such animal. In a time of nuclear weaponry, it is the language of a lunatic."

Winner of the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction
589 pages
First edition hardcover 1984
Pantheon books, a division of Random House, Inc.