Bøger af Molly Guptill Manning

At a time when civilian periodicals faced strict censorship, US Army Chief of Staff George Marshall won the support of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to create an expansive troop-newspaper program. Both Marshall and FDR recognized that there was a second struggle taking place outside the battlefields of World War II - the war of words. While Hitler inundated the globe with propaganda, morale across the US Army dwindled. As the Axis blurred the lines between truth and fiction, the best defense was for American troops to bring the truth into focus by writing it down and disseminating it themselves.

In late 1943, small packages bound in sturdy brown paper began to arrive at American military outposts, each containing a set of ingenious pocket-sized books called the Armed Services Editions. Titled the Victory Book Campaign, this initiative was led by librarians, who garnered the support of individuals, businesses, civic organizations, and Eleanor Roosevelt. For war-weary, homesick men, these books--fiction, biographies, classics, sports tales, history books, poetry, compilations of short stories, books of humor--represented the greatest gift the military could give them. This ann+BD11otated catalogue includes posters, photographs, newspaper clippings, and other contemporary documents that provide valuable context for how the written word not only increased morale during wartime but ultimately transformed American education and changed the book industry forever.

From New York Times bestselling author Molly Guptill Manning comes The War of Words, the captivating story of how American troops in World War II wielded pens to tell their own stories as they made history.At a time when civilian periodicals faced strict censorship, US Army Chief of Staff George Marshall won the support of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to create an expansive troop-newspaper program. Both Marshall and FDR recognized that there was a second struggle taking place outside the battlefields of World War II--the war of words. While Hitler inundated the globe with propaganda, morale across the US Army dwindled. As the Axis blurred the lines between truth and fiction, the best defense was for American troops to bring the truth into focus by writing it down and disseminating it themselves.By war's end, over 4,600 unique GI publications had been printed around the world. In newsprint, troops made sense of their hardships, losses, and reasons for fighting. These newspapers--by and for the troops--became the heart and soul of a unit.From Normandy to the shores of Japan, American soldiers exercised a level of free speech the military had never known nor would again. It was an extraordinary chapter in American democracy and military history. In the war for "four freedoms," it was remarkably fitting that troops fought not only with guns but with their pens. This stunning volume includes fourteen pages of photographs and illustrations.