Rating: 
Summary: Moving, thought provoking.
Review: I feel that if every American citizen read this book it would make a resounding social impact to the world which would make it a much better and happier world to live in.
Rating: 
Summary: Reads like a 10 hour Nightly Newscast
Review: Tom Brokaw (and a squadron of 'helpers') produced a bombastic, windy book that is a disservice to the superb stories that he is trying to tell.The book is at its best when Brokaw lets the individuals tell their own stories, with a minimum of his commentary intruding. The peoples' stories are poignant, vivid, and worth reading. The problem is, you have to wade through Brokaw's creaking prose to get to the good stuff. Hackneyed phrases loaded with superfluous adjectives may sound OK when read in Tom's distinctive voice - but they do not read well. So - kudos to Tom on getting people to tell the stories. Rotten job of trying to package them.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Generation...Not very good book!
Review: Brokaw's limited journalism experience is evident, as is an obviously liberal bias. My parents both fought in WWII and survived. My mother was the first woman to fly 100 combat missions in U.S. history. A feat I did not learn of until I was a college student and discovered her citation and Air Medal. She described working in the Nursing ward at Mitchell Field in New York, New York and crying at seeing all the returning young soldiers with missing limbs, shattered souls and broken bodies. I don't think Lloyd Cutler's being drafted into the Army in 1944 and then using his Ivy League influence to avoid overseas assignment to D-Day was worthy of inclusion. Particularly since the young man who took his place was killed three days after the landing. While he and others mistakenly described themselves as "special", I find his biography shameful. Brokaw paints him as a man among giants and a leader of this Greatest Generation. He was an "insider" with access to power. But he wasn't a leader of the Greatest Generation. He only benefited from the sacrifices of it. Oh, and I forgot to point out. Brokaw takes every opportunity to ridicule the Republican Party, Conservatism and Faith. A worthy topic with worthy people, at least most of them. Too bad the writer wasn't up to the task.
Rating: 
Summary: Insightful stories of an important era in our history
Review: would be one way to describe Tom Browkaw's collection of stories about the lives of a generation that have been underappreciated. Another way to characterize his book, however, would be to say that after reading it, we should all have a better understanding of why Memorial Day is a holiday. The lives that Brokaw chronicles for us are a microcosm of a generation that shaped the world in the 20th century. As someone who had a very limited understanding of WWII, I now feel that I have more knowledge of the sacrifices countless men and women made. The book was especially useful for giving parents some diverse examples human responses to adversity. Browkaw did an excellent job at making the spector of war become more personal for us all.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful testimony to the generation
Review: If there were no constraints of time or volume, all the people of that Great Generation could have been biographed, Thanks to Mr, Brokaw for ehat he was able to gather and publish. To the thousands not mentioned, including my Father and Mother, and their siblings who were so willing to set aside their lives, I am grateful.
Rating: 
Summary: Praising a phantom generation . . . ?
Review: I gave this book to my 81 year-old father, expecting him to enjoy the attention paid to his generation. His remarks, after he had read the book, included an observation that Mr. Brokaw highlighted only a small fraction of his generation. He wanted to know what happened to those that didn't make it, who went broke, who were fired right before retirement, who created the pollution nighmare, whose business practices of greed and avarice forced out legitimate competition, whose health was neglected by a system that provides healing primarily to those who can pay. He was curious about those who became incurably mentally ill, who fought in the war only to be haunted by "shell shock" for the rest of their lives, who were inarticulate, uneducated, simple people, betrayed by their ruthless politicians. In essence, Dad discovered that, by highlighting only the over-achievers, the cream of the crop, this book creates a mythical people with whom he had little familiarity. Perhaps by dint of his milieu in TV journalism, which notoriously overlooks subleties of all kinds, Mr. Brokaw is unable to realistically portray this group of people, who are, and were, as diverse as any other group in our nation. Noticing that Brokaw leaves little room for other generations to excel, Dad also wondered why other generations are not as great. Perhaps this book should be classified as fiction, or even mythology.
Rating:
Summary: Did not live upto my expectations.
Review: Long ago I learned that disappointment is often related to expectations. So it was withTom Brokaw's book,The Greatest Generation.There was never a problem in putting the book down in as much as "The Book" is a series of news bites each lasting from 30seconds to 5 minutes, with little depth,as most news bites are.I have no doubt that Mr. Brokaw was emotionaly moved when he went abroad to the 40th anniversary of WWII D-Day in 1984. His well meaning tribute to the vetrans of WWII,chronical a number of men and women with whom he had contact over some 15 years as a news analyst. Each vignette describes their war record,how they dealt with the immediate post war period and their accomplishments afterward. The men and women frequently attribute their success to self reliance and leadership skills they learned in the service.Societal changes related to Blacks and Women are woven through his "portraits".The WWII vetrans later in life were certainly the generation that helped foster the changes and deserve credit. In general the book does begin to raise one's consciousness and honors the men and women who served in WWII.
Rating:
Summary: Brokaw's collection is useful, but there are problems...
Review: Mr. Brokaw has done a valuable service for those of us who did not actually live through those years of depression and war. The stories he was able to collect are a series of brilliant recollections by men and women who lived and worked in those tryng times. Reading them is valuable to any present day American, because doing so helps us to understand who we are, and why we are the way we are. Unfortunately, Mr. Brokaw's historical understanding is limited, despite his accomplishments in other fields, and his editorial comments should be accepted with caution.
Rating:
Summary: educational to a vet's daughter who was told very little
Review: It helps to read the experiences of those who served when my Dad did. He would never talk about it even tho he lived, and well, until 1984. He left his squadron booklet behind and the glory bars and medals but no stories as we're beginning to hear now. Our area in Southern MD had a recreation of the Guadalcanal landing last summer and it was helpful --- it made the few b&w snapshots we have more understandable.
Rating:
Summary: Thesis is narrow and short sighted
Review: Mr. Brokaw tells the story of forty-seven men and women who grew up during the depression of the 1930's, answered their country's call to war during the early 1940's and then used their post-depression, post-war drive and ambition to build a booming economy in the United States. Based on the personal sacrifices and successes of these forty-seven people, Mr. Brokaw concludes the whole generation of the 1930's and 1940's sacrificed and accomplished more in terms of victory at war and economic prosperity than any previous or current generation. Mr. Brokaw's single-minded and unrestricted praise for the "greatest generation" created a growing resentment as I read the book. He ignores the scoundrels infesting the "greatest generation" as well as the sacrifices and accomplishments of previous and subsequent generations. Studs Terkel, in his book "The Good War," presents a far more balanced insight in the 1930's/1940's generation. Mr. Terkel identifies and talked to the heros as well as the scoundrels and slime balls who saw World War II as a money making machine and an opportunity for a continuous party away from the responsibility of home. Remember the English concept of the "greatest generation" was over-paid, over-sexed and over-here.As biographical "snipets", the stories told by Mr. Brokaw were interesting. As for his thesis putting forward this group as the "greatest generation", it is narrow and short sighted. Ask the generations who had to fight the Cival War, WWI, Korea and Vietnam about sacrifice.
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