Alistair Cooke's American Journey: Life on the Home Front in the Second World War [Paperback]

This book is a magnificent journal of an epic journey by a consummate journalist.

Shortly before Alistair Cooke died in 2004, aged 94, his secretary found the long-lost manuscript of this book amongst his papers. It was published in 2006. Had it appeared soon after it was written, it would probably have been a best seller. It might not top the charts now but it is worthy of a wide readership not just for the enthralling descriptions of places, people and events but for the quality of the writing. It's a fascinating story. It's easy to read. It's a tour-de-force.

This book is a foretaste of Alistair Cooke's style of narration that enthralled BBC listeners to his Letters from America for almost sixty years. He was the finest storyteller of true stories.

In 1942/3 he made this mammoth journey through America. From Washington he travelled south to Atlanta, all the way down to Miami, back up to Tallahassee, then west to St Louis. From there, he went along the southern coast to Houston, on through San Antonio and El Paso to Phoenix and San Diego, then north to Los Angeles, on to San Francisco and all the way up to Seattle. There he turned east through Montana, south through Wyoming down to Denver, east again to Kansas City, north through Des Moines to Minneapolis, east again to Madison and Milwaukee, down the shore of Lake Michigan to Chicago, across to Detroit, over Lake Erie to Cleveland and Pittsburg then north again to New York. Finally he toured New England. Between the cities listed above, he visited dozens of small towns and rural communities.

The narrative provides a detailed description of the landscape, the climate, the buildings and many widely varying features of the USA. Alistair Cooke was a superb wordsmith, never at a loss for the right adjectives to describe the scenery, the trees, the flowers, crops, farms, houses and other buildings. He paints pictures in words. But it is not just a terrific travelogue. It also tells how the American people coped with the changes in their lives caused by the war. Alistair Cooke visited factories, farms, offices and other places of work. He talked and listened to many people on these visits and he tells their personal stories.

In 1939, America was gearing up to become `the arsenal of democracy' to help defeat the Nazi menace. By 1942 the transformation had moved into overdrive. Factories switched from peaceful products to war work, making guns, tanks and planes. Shipyards built battleships, destroyers and aircraft carriers. Henry Kaiser made hundreds of `Liberty' merchant ships using pre-fabrication methods. The US government urged farmers to grow as much food as possible. The economic depression of the 1930s changed into a booming war economy.

There were huge shifts in the distribution of the population. Young men were drafted into the armed forces and sent to fight in the Pacific, North Africa and Europe. Their jobs were taken over by older men, women and girls, working in the factories and on the farms. Thousands of families who had experienced hardship in the 1930s moved hundreds of miles to new locations for well-paid jobs in the factories and shipyards. There was a dearth of people willing to do low paid jobs on the land.

I lived through WWII as a schoolboy so I recall that we never saw oranges, lemons, bananas and pineapples. Eggs and milk and other foods were `in short supply'. So I was intrigued to learn from this book that the US Government sent a scientist to Florida to set up a plant to make concentrated orange juice for shipment to Britain and elsewhere. Factories were set up in some of the northern states to produce dried egg and dried milk. Without this food from the USA, delivered by the Liberty ships, we would have had a poorer diet.

After the war, many military men wrote books describing the major campaigns and the battles. American Journey is a war book with a difference. It scarcely mentions the fighting. Instead it describes the effect that the war had on the lives of ordinary people, far from the battlefronts, working hard to bring about the defeat of the aggressors

Some people might say that this book is too long, too detailed. But the journey covered thousands of miles so it could never be a short story. There's not a wasted word in it anywhere.

Buy this book and enjoy a good read. It's educational and entertaining. Then, if you have not already done so, buy Letter from America:1946-2004, Memories of the Great and the Good and Alistair Cooke's Biography by Nick Clarke.

Alistair Cooke was one of the great English-language stylists of the 20th centruy as well as being the doyen of 'foreign correspondents' (although, as he was a nautralized US citizen, he wasn't really 'foreign' at all). An "American Journey" reveals a little-known side of US life during the Second World War and is an invaluable history of the era.

This was a time of great transition in the world but much of what he records in the USA did not really change until the great social upheavals of the 1960's; so at times the language may grate on modern ears.

However, it is also a most enjoyable read, generally light and airly but sober where appropriate, always sharply focussed on revealling details. Anyone who has enjoyed listening to "Letter from America" in years gone by will love this book, as will many who discover Alistair Cooke's inimitable style for the first time when reading this living-record history.

I was a fan of the radio broadcasts and of Cooke himself but if my recollection is correct Alistair Cooke left this book in a drawer for many years. American Journey is interesting in parts but generally it was a struggle getting to the end.