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Title: Wolrd War II Cheapened
Review: We all know Tom Brokaw to be a second-rate, fear-peddling, shallow and unoriginal broadcaster. With this book, Brokaw manages to transplant all of these attributes to writing. As if poor and occasionally self-conciously florid writing did not make this book poor enough, Brokaw, as any mass-media ninny would do, focuses on truly trivial aspects of World War II, e.g., the experiences of "victims" -- women, etc. In the process, he completely eschews any meaningful tribute to what WWII was fought for, what any serious treatment of the subject would not leave out. The result is a thoroughly banal presentation of the most heroic and momentous event of the twentieth century. But, this is what I should have expected from a television newscaster. Churchill's "The Second World War" is still (by far) the best history of WWII, personal or otherwise. Is it any coincidence that WWII's greatest hero was also its greatest historian?
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