World War II Non-Fiction for Adults

Adams, Michael C. The Best War Ever: America and World War II (Johns Hopkins Press 1993)

Challenging many of our common assumptions about the period, Adams argues that our experience of World War II was positive but also disturbing, creating problems that continue to plague us today, and offers evidence that memory is distorted, leaving us with misleading and often dangerous legacies.

Asahina, Robert. Just Americans: How Japanese Americans Won a War at Home and Abroad (Gotham 2006)

While 110,000 Japanese Americans were relocated to camps during WWII, thousands of young men who were interned in the camps joined the army and fought the war. This is the story of one such remarkable team.

Bachner, Evan. Men of WWII: Fighting Men at Ease (Abrams 2007)

A collection of non-combat photographs (many of which have never before been seen) of American soldiers and sailors during their leisure time. The shots reveal life in the war years - years that were utterly horrific in some ways, yet remarkably innocent in others.

Beevor, Antory. Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 (Viking Adult 1998)

"As a story of cruelty, courage, and human suffering, Stalingrad is unprecedented and unforgettable. A fantastic and sobering story...fully and authoritatively told" (The New York Times).

Berry, Henry. Battle For Los Angeles (University of New Mexico Press 2006)

From the well-known internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII through L.A.'s "Zoot-Suit Riots", Berry examines the acceptance of the racism that ran wild in California during the war years. He also dissects the ongoing verbal conflicts about the meaning of "race" in the city of Angels.

Bess, Michael. Choices Under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II (Knopf 2006)

The major decisions and actions of WWII examined through the lens of moral reasoning. The author questions the acceptance of WWII as a "just war", singles out stories of particular moral significance and touches upon the politics of memory that are under investigation in our own times.

Brandt, Nat. Harlem at War: The Black Experience in WWII (Syracuse University Press 1996)

The testimonies of black Americans during WWII reveal that they were highly aware of the hypocrisies involved in Americans' fighting Nazi Germany abroad while tolerating Jim Crow at home and in the Armed Forces. With an analysis of the Harlem Riots of 1943 as precursor of the Civil Rights Movement.

Capa, Robert. Slightly Out of Focus (Modern Library 1999)

The times through the eyes of Robert Capa - a gifted, beloved journalist and photographer who worked throughout WWII and captured many of the defining images of the day. Capa shares stories about flamboyant personalities with whom he dined and traveled alongside those of his own memorable life.

Carroll, Andrew. Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front, in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families (Random House 2006)

The National Endowment for the Arts sent distinguished writers such as Tobias Wolff and Mark Bowden to military bases in the U.S., Iraq, and Afghanistan, where they encouraged and helped the troops write their stories and record these tumultuous past five years first-hand.

Costanzo, Ezio. The Mafia and the Allies: The Invasion of Sicily in 1943 and the Return of the Mafia (Enigma 2007). Translated by George S. Lawrence.

Within weeks of the Pearl Harbor attack and the declaration of war on the United States by Germany and Italy U.S. war plans included the defense of the East Coast and the invasion of Sicily. Ezio Costanzo examines the many elements of this secret scenario that included long suppressed information about cooperation between the Mafia and the U.S. Army. The results came in the aftermath of the invasion during the new military government that gave many Mafia leaders important administrative positions.

Culp, Ronald K. First Black United States Marines: The Men of Montford Point, 1942-1946 (McFarland & Co. 2007)

In 1942, the Marines broke their 144-year old tradition and enlisted the first black Marines. The author touches upon the difficulties of segregating forces and the subsequent development of the U.S. Marines through the lens of race.

Dobbs, Michael. The Saboteurs: the Nazi Raid on America (Knopf 2004)

Operation Pastoreus was a German military operation in which foreign agents landed on the coasts of Florida and Long Island in 1942. Inter-agency jealousies and colorful personalities enliven a lesson on the challenges of fighting a war while still attempting to respect and uphold the law.

Dower, John W. War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (Knopf 1986)

A powerful and eye-opening analysis of the universal influence of racism in the 20th century, and "one of the most original and important books to be written about the war between Japan and the United States" (The New York Times)

Erenberg, Lewis A. War in American Culture: Society and Consciousness During World War II (University of Chicago Press 1996)

Scholarly essays, almost all of which were presented in a series of lectures in 1992 at Chicago's Loyola University, explore the role of WWII in the transformation of American social, cultural, and political life. The authors examine arenas as diverse as film-making and immigration law, and reveal how the war encouraged the crossing of the class, racial, and ethnic boundaries that were in place in those years.

Ferguson, Naill. The War of the World: Twentieth Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (Penguin Group 2006)

"Why was the 20th century one of the most violent and brutal in history? Not content with the oft-cited explanations of larger populations living in closer proximity to one another or the availability of modern, more efficient weapons, Ferguson comes up with three explanations he considers more plausible - namely, economic volatility, disintegrating empires, and ethnic conflict - which he illustrates with numerous examples in this ambitious, thoroughly researched work" (Library Journal).

Friedman, Max Paul. Nazis and Good Neighbors (Cambridge University Press 2003)

With research conducted in seven countries, Friedman documents a U.S. program in which more than 4,000 German expatriates were seized from Latin America and interned in the Texas desert. Nazi Party members were imprisoned alongside Jewish refugees in these strife-ridden camps.

Golabek, Mona. The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond the Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival. (Warner Books 2002)

A young piano prodigy flees with her mother from Vienna to London, boards the Kindertransport and says goodbye to her mother forever. This is the story of her courage and subsequent transformation into a world-famous pianist.

Hastings, Max. Armageddon: the Battle for Germany (Knopf 2004)

"This huge and splendid volume tells the grim tale of the final collapse of the Third Reich...from the viewpoints of the upper millstone (the Allied armies), the lower millstone (the Russians) and the grain being ground in-between (the Germans)......ranks among the very best military history volumes." (Publishers Weekly)

Jarvis, Christina S. The Male Body at War: American Masculinity During World War II (Northern Illinois University Press 2004)

Gender studies students will find a fascinating perspective on the body as cultural construction in this volume, which moves through the troubled representations of masculinity during the Depression into the male-mediated popular culture and military regimen of the war, finally morphing into the hyper-masculinity of the 1950s.

Kaplan, Alice Yaeger. Interpreter (Simon & Schuster 2005)

Justice and racism in the U.S. Forces during the war as seen through the eyes of an interpreter for the Americans during WWII. His testimony movingly chronicles two separate murder trials of the war - one of a white officer, one of a black soldier - and the disparity of the outcomes for each. The American Army executed 70 of its own soldiers between 1943 and 1946, almost all of them black.

Kashima, Tetsuden. Judgement Without Trial: Japanese American Imprisonment during World War II (University of Washington Press 2003)

The author traces the U.S. Government's plans for the internment and incarceration of Japanese Americans to as early as the 1920's and includes interviews with and the diaries of Japanese Americans who had been rounded up from points as distant as Alaska, Hawaii, and Latin America.

Keegan, John. The Second World War. (Penguin Group 2005)

"Keegan examines each theater of the war, focusing on five crucial battles (the airborne battle of Crete, the carrier battle of Midway, the tank battle of Falaise, the city battle of Berlin, and the amphibious battle of Okinawa) as well as the strategic dilemmas faced by the leaders and the consequences of their decisions on the fighting men and the course of the war as a whole" (Booknews). Keegan also authored several noteworthy books on WWII for the Smithsonian History of Warfare collection.

Kennedy, David M. Freedom From Fear: The American people in Depression and War, 1929 to 1945 (Oxford University Press 1999)

Kennedy covers the history of the crucial period encompassing the Great Depression, the New Deal, and World War II, incorporating the most pertinent social, political, and economic elements along the way. Highly regarded for content, scope, originality,and excellence in writing. Pulitzer Prize winner.

Lange, Dorothea. Impounded:Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment (W.W. Norton 2006)

Famous for her work during the Depression, Lange produced "images whose content so opposed the federal objective of demonizing Japanese-Americans that the vast majority of the photographs were suppressed throughout WWII." (Publishers Weekly) With historian's commentaries.

Lilly, Robert. Taken by Force: Rape and American GIs in Europe in WWII (Palgrave Macmillan 2007)

There were an estimated 14,000 civilian women raped by American GIs in the U.K., France, and Germany during the war. The book reveals the differing social contexts in each country, the disproportionate number of black G.I.s that were prosecuted, and contributes to an understanding of sexual violence in armed combat.

Lowe, Keith. Inferno: The Fiery Destruction of Hamburg 1943 (Scribner 2007)

A presentation of the firestorm as caught between two opposing forces characteristic of WWII - the desire to destroy at random and the will to restrain that desire. A provocative contribution to the moral dimensions of the air war over Germany.

McIntosh, Elizabeth. Sisterhood of Spies (Naval Institute Press, 1998)

"An enthralling tribute to the largely unsung Mata-Haris who worked undercover to win the war, told with aplomb by one of their own. " (Publishers Weekly)

Mendelsohn, Daniel. The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million (Harper Collins 2006)

The writer's search for his family's tragic past in World War II is also a meditation on our own fragile hold on the past, and a testament to the many ways in which "the Holocaust continues to affect people who have had no direct experience of it". (The New Yorker) Winner of the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for Memoir.

Newark, Tim. Mafia Allies: The True Story of America's Secret Alliance with the Mob in World War II (MBI 2007)

A cautionary tale about the long-term consequences of military alliances of convenience and the story of a little-known episode in WWII in which one of Mussollini's deputies waged war against the Mafia.

Patterson, Ian. Guernica and Total War (Harvard University Press 2007)

From the Blitz to Hiroshima to the destruction of the World Trade Center to daily carnage in Darfur and Iraq, war has been increasingly directed against civilians, who constitute an ever larger proportion of its casualties. Patterson explores how modern men and women respond to the threat of a new kind of warfare with enhanced capacities for imagining aggression and death.

Pogue, Forrest C. Pogue's War: Diaries of a WWII Combatant (University Press of Kentucky 2001)

One of the Army's greatest WWII combat historians finally dusted off his own wartime journals and brought us this vivid accounting of his own experiences in the Battles of the Bulge and Omaha Beach, among many others.

Rivas-Rodriguez, Maggie (Editor). A Legacy Greater than Words: stories of U.S. Latinos and Latinas of the WWII generation (University of Texas Press 2005).

Over 750,000 Mexican-American men served in the war, and while their communities were deeply impacted by the effort, Mexican-Americans in America's Southwest did not experience greater opportunities as the result of their war efforts, unlike their counterparts in other parts of the country.

Roeder, George R. The Censored War: American Visual Experience During World War Two (Yale University Press 1993)

An examination of the ways in which American public opinion was shaped during WWII by the images it was allowed to view, those it was not allowed to view (many of them displayed in this book), and a critical look at some of the most blatantly manufactured images of the times.

Sledge, E.B. With the Old Breed: at Leleliu and Okinawa (Oxford University Press 1990)

A powerful, no-holds barred accounting of the horrors of war, with detailed descriptions of the searing heat, brutalities, cruelties, and never-ending gunfire that were the author's constant companions.

Starr, Kevin. Embattled Dreams: Californians in War and Peace 1940-1950 (Oxford University Press 2002)

A comprehensive overview of how WWII forever changed California and Californians by former State Librarian Kevin Starr, "the foremost chronicler of that often fabulous region, imposing upon the dramatic elements of California history a novelist's imagination." (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Steinweis, Alan E., (Editor) Impact of Nazism : New Perspective on the Third Reich and Its Legacy (University of Nebraska Press 2003)

This recent collection of scholarly essays probing the nature, history, and aftermath of the Nazi regime prove that many aspects of WWII continue to reverberate, provoking ongoing discussions and debate. Wide-ranging viewpoints on topics such as the origins of fascism and the politics surrounding the memory of the Holocaust.

Takaki, Ronald. Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II (Little, Brown, and Company 2000)

The author brings to light the wartime responses of a wide variety of ethnic and cultural communities - Mexicans, African-Americans, Chinese, Filipinos, Jews, Koreans and Italians - revealing the ways in which many of these citizens asserted their American identity in order to share in both the responsibilities and rewards of the war.

Thomas, Evan. Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign 1941-1945 (Simon & Schuster 2006)

A fast-paced narrative of the last great naval war, viewed through the prism of four different naval commanders, two from the U.S., two from Japan.

Torgovnick, Marianna. The War Complex: World War II in Our Time (Univ. of Chicago Press 2005)

The author argues in this book that we have lived under a "war complex" since the end of World War II. She examines which aspects of the war still remain taboo, which we celebrate with ease, and focuses on the impact of the technological acceleration of mass death in recent years.

Van Ells, Mark D. To Hear Only Thunder Again: America's World War II Veterans Come Home (Lexington Books 2001)

An examination of the health, education, employment, housing, medical and personal requirements needed to successfully incorporate the veterans of WWII into society, the political responses to these needs at that time, and the enormous costs those efforts incurred.

Weintraub, Stanley. 15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall: Three Generals Who Saved the American Century (Free Press 2007)

A new book by one of the leading historians offers a " ...detailed and absorbing gloss on the relationships among three extraordinary leaders....Fascinating reading." (Library Journal)

Wiesel, Elie. Night (Hill and Wang 1960)

"A slim volume of terrifying power" (New York Times). This classic addresses the horrors of the concentration camps alongside the intense personal and philosophical dilemmas the author faced when he and his family were taken to Auschwitz and then Buchenwald. Wiesel, a deeply observant Jewish teenager at the time, witnessed the deaths of his own family members and fell into deep despair. In time, he decided to witness the Holocaust to make certain that the world would never forget man's capacity for inhumanity to man.