Americans in a World at War
Intimate Histories from the Crash of Pan Am's Yankee Clipper
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:29th Nov '23
Should be back in stock very soon
A vivid narrative of an ill-fated Pan American flight during World War II that captures the dramatic backstories of its passengers and, through them, the impact of Americans' global connections. On February 21, 1943, Pan American Airways' celebrated seaplane, the Yankee Clipper, took off from New York's Marine Air Terminal and island-hopped its way across the Atlantic Ocean. Arriving at Lisbon the following evening, it crashed in the Tagus River, killing twenty-four of its thirty-nine passengers and crew. Americans in a World at War traces the backstories of seven worldly Americans aboard that plane, their personal histories, their politics, and the paths that led them toward war. Combat soldiers made up only a small fraction of the millions of Americans, both in and out of uniform, who scattered across six continents during the Second World War. This book uncovers a surprising history of American noncombatants abroad in the years leading into the twentieth century's most consequential conflict. Long before GIs began storming beaches and liberating towns, Americans had forged extensive political, economic, and personal ties to other parts of the world. These deep and sometimes contradictory engagements, which preceded the bombing of Pearl Harbor, would shape and in turn be transformed by the US war effort. The intriguing biographies of the Yankee Clipper's passengers--among them an Olympic-athlete-turned-export salesman, a Broadway star, a swashbuckling pilot, and two entrepreneurs accused of trading with the enemy--upend conventional American narratives about World War II. As their travels take them from Ukraine, France, Spain, Panama, Cuba, and the Philippines to Java, India, Australia, Britain, Egypt, the Soviet Union, and the Belgian Congo, among other hot spots, their movements defy simple boundaries between home front and war front. Americans in a World at War offers fresh perspectives on a transformative period of US history and global connections during the "American Century."
Blower shows us the Second World War from wholly novel and thought-provoking points of view. Recounting the doomed transatlantic flight of Pan Am's Yankee Clipper in 1943, Blower re-creates the strikingly worldly view of American civilians borne aloft and into a global cataclysm. Blower's original research and powerful prose carry us along on the journey, making us feel as if we know these people and allowing us to worry about their fates as if their story were happening right in front of us. * Eric Rauchway, author of Winter War: Hoover, Roosevelt, and the First Clash Over the New Deal *
In this brilliant, creative, and compelling work, Brooke Blower brings readers into World War II through the lives of travelers on an ill-fated transatlantic flight, allowing readers to see the world on the edge of war. The author's beautiful writing and astonishing range of sources make this book a model of the integration of biography and global history. * Mary L. Dudziak, author of War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences *
By expertly blending the international and the personal, Brooke Blower gives us a new and fascinating way to understand American reactions to the Second World War. This powerfully written and originally researched book shows the complexities and contradictions of America's rise to global superpower. Americans in a World at War is a prime example of the new and exciting generation of scholarly analyses of World War II. * Michael S. Neiberg, author of When France Fell: The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Relationship *
It's a satisfyingly fresh perspective on the era. * Publishersweekly.com *
Ambitious and compelling. The book offers new insights into the history of global war, while also generating a path for historians seeking to broaden the field of diplomatic history. Blower's meticulous research spans continents and types of sources, and she has adopted an innovative narrative style that weaves together collective biographies with the history of a plane crash...Blower takes this one moment-amidst a sea of tragic wartime losses- and explains the spaces between combat and home front...Blower has provided a fresh way to understand the complexity of American lives in the first fifty years of the twentieth century. * Tammy Proctor, H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews *
This is an unusual book by any standard, well worth the attention of any World War II scholar or aficionado... It is a 'you-are-there' tour de force...Your reviewer cannot say enough good things about the quality of the writing and the research underlying it...The body of the work moves effortlessly, which makes Americans in a World at War such a pleasure to read. * Nicholas Reynolds, Journal of the American Military Past *
Americans in a World at War, is both ambitious and compelling. The book offers new insights into the history of global war, while also generating a path for historians seeking to broaden the field of diplomatic history. Blower's meticulous research spans continents and types of sources, and she has adopted an innovative narrative style that weaves together collective biographies with the history of a plane crash... It will be a book that I return to as a reference when I teach or think about the forces shaping the transnational world of the past century and a half. * Tammy Proctor, H-Diplo *
Blower has written a poignant book based on the February 21, 1943, crash of a Pan American seaplane in Lisbon, Portugal...Blower is to be praised for her archival work and complex genealogy studies. Her abilities to mix biography with history will keep readers on edge. An excellent contribution to 20th century US history. Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty. * Choice *
An excellent contribution to 20th-century US history. Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty. * Choice *
- Winner of Winner, New Deal Book Award Honorable Mention, Myrna F. Bernath Book Award, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.
ISBN: 9780199322008
Dimensions: 279mm x 229mm x 19mm
Weight: 953g
560 pages