The American Home Front

By Alistair Cooke,

Book cover of The American Home Front: 1941-1942

Book description

In nearly three thousand BBC broadcasts over fifty-eight years, Alistair Cooke reported on America, illuminating our country for a global audience. He was one of the most widely read and widely heard chroniclers of America—the Twentieth Century’s de Tocqueville. Cooke died in 2004, but shortly before he passed away a…

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Why read it?

1 author picked The American Home Front as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

At the end of February 1942, British-born journalist Alistair Cooke set off upon a road trip across wartime America, to “see what the war had done to people.” His observations provide a series of fascinating snapshots of the home front in the early months of the war. Shortages of civilian goods showed up everywhere, from the West Virginia soda fountain with the forlorn sign over an orange-squeezer that read, “Regret. Out of Coca-Cola,” to Houston, where rubber and gas rationing led to overcrowding on city buses that threw whites and Blacks into unwonted jostling proximity.

On the West Coast, Cooke…

Want books like The American Home Front?

Our community of 11,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like The American Home Front.

Browse books like The American Home Front

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Cuba, presidential biography, and World War 1?

Cuba 88 books
World War 1 926 books