About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherHoughton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

ISBN-100547554435

ISBN-139780547554433

eBay Product ID (ePID)150532611

Product Key Features

Book TitleLast of the Doughboys : the Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War

Number of Pages528 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2013

TopicMilitary / Veterans, Military / World War I, General, Military

IllustratorYes

GenreBiography & Autobiography, History

AuthorRichard Rubin

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height1.5 in

Item Weight27.6 Oz

Item Length9 in

Item Width6 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

Reviews"Richard Rubin has written the most riveting and astonishing book about World War I that I have read in a decade. No matter what you think about that terrible conflict, this book will lift up your heart, not only about the war but about being an American. It's unique!" - Thomas Fleming, author of The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I "Richard Rubin has performed an extraordinary feat of World War I sleuthing. He has managed to track down numerous centenarians - centenarians! - who fought in the trenches and has skillfully resurrected their memories in a way that brings that now sepia-toned conflict into focus as sharp as a bayonet. Rubin refers to these doughboys as 'the forgotten generation.' Yet he brings them back unforgettably. And his book is addictively readable." - Joseph E. Persico, author of Roosevelt's Centurions: FDR and the Commanders He Led to Victory in World War II "Richard Rubin has done something that will never be possible for anyone to do again. His interviews with the last American World War I veterans - who have all since died - bring to vivid life a cataclysm that changed our world forever but that remains curiously forgotten here. And his research and battlefield visits help us picture the background to the survivors' stories." - Adam Hochschild, author of To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918, "Richard Rubin has written the most riveting and astonishing book about World War I that I have read in a decade. No matter what you think about that terrible conflict, this book will lift up your heart, not only about the war but about being an American. It's unique!" - Thomas Fleming, author of The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I "Richard Rubin has performed an extraordinary feat of World War I sleuthing. He has managed to track down numerous centenarians - centenarians! - who fought in the trenches and has skillfully resurrected their memories in a way that brings that now sepia-toned conflict into focus as sharp as a bayonet. Rubin refers to these doughboys as 'the forgotten generation.' Yet he brings them back unforgettably. And his book is addictively readable." - Joseph E. Persico, author of Roosevelt's Centurions: FDR and the Commanders He Led to Victory in World War II "Richard Rubin has done something that will never be possible for anyone to do again. His interviews with the last American World War I veterans - who have all since died - bring to vivid life a cataclysm that changed our world forever but that remains curiously forgotten here. And his research and battlefield visits help us picture the background to the survivors' stories." - Adam Hochschild, author of To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918

Dewey Edition23

TitleLeadingThe

Dewey Decimal940.48173

Table Of ContentPrologue: No Man's Landix 1. Wolves on the Battlefield1 2. Over the Top15 3. The American Sector35 4. Cheer and Laughter and Joyous Shout72 5. The People Behind the Battle94 6. The Forgotten Generation111 7. Give a Little Credit to the Navy123 8. A Vast Enterprise in Salesmanship142 9. Hell, We Just Got Here165 10. We Didn't See a Thing188 11. Loyal, True, Straight and Square216 12. Old Dixieland in France243 13. L'Ossuaire285 14. A Wicked Gun, That Machine Gun312 15. Wasn't a Lot of Help346 16. The Last Night of the War389 17. The Last of the Last424 18. We Are All Missing You Very Much465 Acknowledgments477 Bibliography479 Index481

SynopsisFor the past decade, Richard Rubin sought every last living American veteran of World War I--and uncovered a forgotten great generation, and their war., In 2003, 85 years after the armistice, it took Richard Rubin months to find just one living American veteran of World War I. But then, he found another. And another. Eventually he managed to find dozens, aged 101 to 113, and interview them. All are gone now. A decade-long odyssey to recover the story of a forgotten generation and their Great War led Rubin across the United States and France, through archives, private collections, and battlefields, literature, propaganda, and even music. But at the center of it all were the last of the last, the men and women he met: a new immigrant, drafted and sent to France, whose life was saved by a horse; a Connecticut Yankee who volunteered and fought in every major American battle; a Cajun artilleryman nearly killed by a German aeroplane; an 18-year-old Bronx girl "drafted" to work for the War Department; a machine-gunner from Montana; a Marine wounded at Belleau Wood; the 16-year-old who became America's last WWI veteran; and many, many more. They were the final survivors of the millions who made up the American Expeditionary Forces, nineteenth-century men and women living in the twenty-first century. Self-reliant, humble, and stoic, they kept their stories to themselves for a lifetime, then shared them at the last possible moment, so that they, and the World War they won - the trauma that created our modern world - might at last be remembered. You will never forget them. The Last of the Doughboys is more than simply a war story: It is a moving meditation on character, grace, aging, and memory.

LC Classification NumberD639.V48U67 2013