Soldier from the War Returning

One of our most enduring national myths surrounds the men and women who fought in the so-called good war. The Greatest Generation, we're told by Tom Brokaw and others, fought heroically, then returned to America happy, healthy, and well adjusted. InSoldier from the War Returning, historian Thomas Childers shatters that myth. Interweaving the intimate stories of three familiesincluding his ownwith a decade's worth of research, he paints an entirely new picture of the war's aftermath. Drawing on government documents, interviews, oral histories, and diaries, he reveals the true cost of the war. Alcoholism, homelessness, and unemployment were rampant, leading to domestic violence and a skyrocketing divorce rate. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were diagnosed with psychoneurotic disorders (now known as PTSD). Though many veterans bounced back, others were haunted for decades afterward; some never fully recovered. Novelistic in its telling and impeccably researched, Childers's book is a stark reminder that the price of war is unimaginably high, and the toll can stretch across generations.

Thomas Childers is the Sheldon and Lucy Hackney Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of five previous books on the Third Reich and the Second World War, most recently, Wings of Morning and In the Shadows of War.