There
was an interesting piece in The New York Times Book Review about a
thought-provoking book, When Books Went To War: The Stories That Helped Us Win
World War II by Molly Guptill Manning (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). The book talks about the Armed Services
Editions, books that were purchased by the US government and shipped overseas
to inspire, comfort, and distract soldiers who confronted death, morality, and
isolation on a daily basis. Manning’s
book shows how books took on a greater role than one could imagine.
The
government's program that sent 123 million copies of 1,322 works over four years
was inspired by an American Library Association push called Victory Book
Campaigns, where books were collected and donated by the public and given to
the servicemen.
According
to The Times, publishers adopted the slogan “Books are weapons in the war of
ideas,” and formed the non-profit Council on Books in Wartime. It was “dedicated to the belief that the
dissemination of serious books (or at least the promotion of reading) could
help counteract the Nazi assault on freedom."
I
think it’s great a book was written about this movement to grow book-reading
and to do so in a way that made a difference in the lives of people whom we
depended on to defend the free world.
On
the other hand, can you imagine how that list of books was carefully trimmed to
only represent books that didn’t discuss politics, war, and the serious issues
of the day. The government was not
sending books that would in anyway upset the soldiers or counter anything that
would take way from their ability to kill and win the war. In some ways, this program can be looked at
as one of censorship, though that would bastardize the true intent and need for
the program.
Some questions that come to mind about the program are these:
Some questions that come to mind about the program are these:
Did
soldiers come home more literate than when they left?
Did
they continue to read voraciously upon their return?
Were
the books and writers disseminated during wartime become the favorite of
non-soldiers as well?
Were
books also sent to the wives and children of soldiers to distract them during
wartime?
I
wonder if we do such a thing today. Do
we ship books to soldiers stationed in Korea, Japan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and
elsewhere? Will they be reading the same
books that you and I might read? Will
these books make them better soldiers – or better people?
I
guess anytime books are used to make a positive difference in the world and of
the lives of others we should celebrate such a victory.
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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and
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