It’s 15 Minutes Until “Sins”

Listen to the archived show on October 19th.

Please join Sins of Omission Monday, October 19 at 9:00 p.m. ET as host Paulie Abeles talks to critically acclaimed author (and UPenn historian) Thomas Childers.

Our topic will be his new book “Soldier from the War Returning: The Greatest Generation’s Troubled Homecoming from World War II”–an amazing story of three men and how their problems adjusting to post-WWII America—mirrored the problems of many returning World War II vets — a fact too often ‘romanticized’ by popular historians. This is a great, compelling story.

From a review: “One of our most enduring national myths surrounds the men and women who fought in the so-called “Good War.” The Greatest Generation, we’re told by Tom Brokaw and others, fought heroically, then returned to America happy, healthy and well-adjusted. They quickly and cheerfully went on with the business of rebuilding their lives.

In this shocking and hauntingly beautiful book, historian Thomas Childers shatters that myth. He interweaves the intimate story of three families—including his own—with a decades’ worth of research to paint an entirely new picture of the war’s aftermath. Drawing on government documents, interviews, oral histories and diaries, he reveals that 10,000 veterans a month were being diagnosed with psycho-neurotic disorder (now known as PTSD). Alcoholism, homelessness, and unemployment were rampant, leading to a skyrocketing divorce rate. Many veterans bounced back, but their struggle has been lost in a wave of nostalgia that threatens to undermine a new generation” of returning soldiers.

Novelistic in its telling and impeccably researched, Childers’s book is a stark reminder that the price of war is unimaginably high. The consequences are human, not just political, and the toll can stretch across generations.” (Houghton Mifflin)

Bio of Thomas Childers:

“Thomas Childers is Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has been teaching for over 25 years. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Tennessee and earned his Ph.D. in History from Harvard University.

In addition to his position at Penn, Professor Childers has held visiting professorships at Trinity Hall College, Cambridge, Smith College, and Swarthmore College. He is a popular lecturer abroad as well, in London, Oxford, Berlin, and Munich.

Professor Childers has won several teaching awards, including the Ira T. Abrahms Award for Distinguished Teaching and Challenging Teaching in the Arts and Sciences, the Richard S. Dunn Award for Distinguished Teaching in History, and the Senior Class Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

Professor Childers is the author and editor of several books on modern German history and the Second World War. He is currently completing a trilogy on the Second World War. The first volume, Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down over Germany in World War II, was praised by Jonathan Yardley in The Washington Post as “a powerful and unselfconsciously beautiful book.”

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Paulie’s weekly show is aimed at giving listeners insight into the topics of the day beyond the nightly news. To listen to more of Paulie’s recent shows, use our instructions in the far right column for how to retrieve all NoQuarter radio shows via iTunes.

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