SuitabookA History of US- War, Peace, and All That Jazz (1918-1945) #9
Joy Hakim
- Reading
- Read it as a starting point for questioning how national history is selected and framed. Pause after major transitions to compare public excitement, hardship, racism and wartime experience.
- Themes
- War and national change: The book covers the period from the end of the First World War through the Second World War, including its stated horrors and victories. The book presents this mainly as information or explanation.
- Crisis, government and hope: The book addresses crisis, government and hope; the detail of how it is developed remains unclear. The wording gives Roosevelt a prominent, hopeful role, but it does not establish whether the book endorses his policies or examines competing views.
- Popular culture and inequality: The book places suffrage, Louis Armstrong’s jazz, Babe Ruth’s home runs and leisure activities alongside the continuing problem of racism. Its stated angle links cultural change and public enjoyment with unequal social conditions, though the relationships between these topics are not shown.
- Worth knowing
- The treatment includes war, economic hardship, unemployment, farmers’ difficulties, racism and the described ‘horrors’ of the Second World War; the depth and detail of these subjects are unclear.