**An intimate, profoundly affecting chronicle of the most devastating
war in history, as told through the voices of ordinary men and women who
experienced--and helped to win--it. - Includes maps and hundreds of
photographs.
**
Focusing on the citizens of four towns--Luverne, Minnesota; Sacramento,
California; Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama--The War follows
more than forty people from 1941 to 1945. Woven largely from their
memories, the compelling, unflinching narrative unfolds month by bloody
month, with the outcome always in doubt. All the iconic events are here,
from Pearl Harbor to the liberation of the concentration camps--but we
also move among prisoners of war and Japanese American internees,
defense workers and schoolchildren, and families who struggled simply to
stay together while their men were shipped off to Europe, the Pacific,
and North Africa.