Silent Voices Of World War Ii

The authors provide a voice for these previously silent heroes of World War II: enlisted men and women at Los Alamos who actually fabricated the atomic bomb, Navajo Marine privates, National Guard enlisted men, and Japanese American internees.

Drawing together a wide variety of primary source documents from across the United States, Europe, and Asia, this book illuminates the events and experiences of World War II—the most devastating war in human history. World War II was the most destructive and disruptive war ever, a global conflict that in one way or another affected the lives of people across the planet. Voices of World War II: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life coalesces a wide variety of primary source documents drawn from across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Supplemented by interpretive material that enables readers to analyze them, assess their impact and significance, and place them in context to comparable situations today, the documents provide rare insights into World War II. Expert commentaries and additional information on these texts enable a greater understanding of the background to these documents, providing valuable training in learning to interpret, assess, and evaluate historical sources. Intended primarily for upper-level high school and undergraduate-level history students, general readers will also appreciate the variegated array of primary material from World War II, which depicts numerous aspects of the conflict, often in extremely personal terms.

This eye-opening anthology documents, for the first time, the effects of World War II on Latina/o personal and political beliefs across a broad spectrum of ethnicities and races within the Latina/o identity.

Presents the history of the United States participation in World War II, including the role of women and African Americans and the internment of Japanese Americans.

This eye-opening anthology documents the effects of WWII on Latina/o personal and political beliefs across a broad spectrum of ethnicities and races. The first book-length study of Latina/o experiences in World War II over a wide spectrum of identities and ancestries—from Cuban American, Spanish American, and Mexican American segments to the under-studied Afro-Latino experience—Latina/os and World War II probes the controversial aspects of Latina/o soldiering and citizenship in the war, the repercussions of which defined the West during the twentieth century. The editors also offer a revised, more accurate tabulation of the number of Latina/os who served in the war. Spanning imaginative productions, such as vaudeville and the masculinity of the soldado razo theatrical performances; military segregation and the postwar lives of veterans; Tejanas on the homefront; journalism and youth activism; and other underreported aspects of the wartime experience, the essays collected in this volume showcase rarely seen recollections. Whether living in Florida in a transformed community or deployed far from home (including Mexican Americans who were forced to endure the Bataan Death March), the men and women depicted in this collection yield a multidisciplinary, metacritical inquiry. The result is a study that challenges celebratory accounts and deepens the level of scholarly inquiry into the realm of ideological mobility for a unique cultural crossroads. Taking this complex history beyond the realm of war narratives, Latina/os and World War II situates these chapters within the broader themes of identity and social change that continue to reverberate in postcolonial lives.

"Describes first-hand accounts of World War II from those who lived through it"--Provided by publisher.

In 1941, New Mexico was an agrarian state with just over half a million people, many of whom lived without electricity, running water, indoor plumbing, or paved roads. However, the state provided more military volunteers per capita--including eight Medal of Honor winners--than any other state and had the highest casualty rate per capita in the country. New Mexico provided essential resources ranging from oil and coal to potash and copper. The state is often remembered for being the location where the first nuclear weapon was designed and tested in 1945, but more important at the time were the development of the proximity fuze and the testing of the top-secret Norden bombsight. The state also housed German and Italian prisoners of war, and, in one of the darkest moments in US history, incarcerated American citizens of Japanese descent in several concentration camps.