Summer Reading Unbroken

The art of survival is something that is not easily learned. For some, however, it is something that comes from a natural desire to be defiant and rebellious. In the novel Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand, protagonist Louie Zamperini fights for survival through a number of trials that are presented to him. His life takes him from being a troubled child, to an Olympic runner, to a bomber lost at sea, to POW in some of the worst camps Japan could conjure. Louie not only survives these trials, he stands up and goes directly against the normality and ease of submission and faces his adversity head on. Throughout the novel, Louie shows that his ability to survive stems from his natural urge to rebel and defy anything that he deems too controlling in his life.

Well-known nonfiction author Laura Hillenbrand, in her best-selling biography, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, describes the chilling reality faced by those living in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. As the title suggests, this is not the typical World War II tale of hardship that ends in liberation; rather, it follows the main character, Louis “Louie” Zamperini, through his childhood, Olympic performances, and military career leading up to his captivity, as well as his later marriage and many years of healing. Hillenbrand's purpose is to impress upon her readers the scale of this tragedy as well as remind them of the horror that so many nameless soldiers endured. She adopts an emotional yet straightforward tone in order to get readers to sympathize with the characters and truly understand what they went through. To do so, she manages to make the unique story of one man represent the thousands of others going through the same tragedy.

The book I read is Dog Tags and the book takes place in WW2, it`s about a boy who lies about his age so he can get into the military. His squadron is attacked and his position is overrun by the Nazis and a tree fell over and knocked him out and when he wakes up he is alone. I would recommend this book for readers that like war history books. The book enables you to appreciate the character’s thoughts and feelings. The reader can empathize with the characters.

During the World War II, many ethnic groups such as the Native Americans, Latinas, Japanese Americans and African Americans were struggling and fighting for their freedom and equal rights, many of the ethnic group achieved their goals due to the effort they all had to go through.

World War II had a lasting impression on not only the countries but on the soldiers and people as well. POWs and internees had to experience things that would make a grown man cringe in fear. In the stories ”Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand, and “Manzanar” by Jenne Houston Wakatsuki, tells the tragic story of how these men are stripped away of their human rights. As they try to struggle their way out of insanity, their stories will forever echo in history to show the outcome of war.

While coming up with a topic for this paper, one of my questions dealt with war and cultural groups. I will be the first to admit, Racism was the last thing on my mind. The original question being, “How does war affect a Social Culture and how does it stand today?” When I started thinking about Cultures that had been so deeply affected by war, one of the first that came to mind were the Japanese in World War II. Then I recalled what one person had told me of their younger days at college, when they were attending school. Their name will remain anonymous; I do not want to make the victim’s name public as it has a very personal nature.

During World War II, around one million black men served in the army. They were in different units to the white men. Riots and fights occurred when black men from northern America had to face the discrimination in the south during training. This lessoned peoples opinion of them, in a prejudice way. They were never allowed to join the Marines or the Air Corps, but this changed for the first time during the war due to the military needs. After the war, blacks began to challenge their status as second-class citizens. After their country fighting Nazi Germany, who killed six million Jews, and a fascist Italy, the people of America began to question the racism and

In the mist of the countries involvement in one of the most grueling wars in history new barriers were broken to make room for an equal America. Although true equality was not reached, these short four years would lead to the turning point in American acceptance toward diversity, both in and out of the work place. The movement of thousands of men overseas create a substantial gap in the work place, creating a never before seen chance for women, Blacks, and immigrants to flood the many war based jobs. At the same time, the Japanese faced radical discrimination for the events in which provoked the United States entry in to the War. In the years incasing WWII opportunity opened to those who had been affected hardest but

In the United States World War II has been one of the most remembered wars of all time. Acclaimed historian Ronald Takaki asserts that for many Americans, World War II was fought for a “double victory”: on the battlefront as well as on the home front. Takaki’s book Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II reminds the audience that there was much, much more happening at home and on the frontlines during World War II than in the battlefield. Takaki presents a strong central argument; it illuminates the incongruity of America's own oppressive behavior toward minorities at home, even while proclaiming the role in World War II as a fight against oppression abroad. It also pays tribute to the determination and perseverance of ethnically diverse Americans in their two-front war against prejudice and fascism. In addition Takaki tells the story through the lives of ethnically diverse Americans: Japanese Americans who felt betrayed by their own country when families were sent to internment camps; For African Americans, the war for freedom had to be fought in their country’s own backyard; a Navajo code talker who uses his complex native language to transmit secret battle messages and confound the Japanese, while his people are living in desperate poverty on a government reservation. Their dual struggle to defeat the enemy abroad and overcome racism at home gives the Double Victory its title and its texture.

officials eventually began to recruit these internees into the American army. Not only was WWII a war about political alliances and geographical sovereignty, but it was also a war about race and racial superiority throughout the world. Propagating this idea, Dower (1986) argues, “World War Two contributed immeasurably not only to a sharpened awareness of racism within the United States, but also to more radical demands and militant tactics on the part of the victims of discrimination” (War Without Mercy: p.5). In elucidating the racial motivations and fallout from WWII, Dower helps one realize the critical role that race and racial politics played during the war and are still at play in our contemporary world. An analysis of this internment process reveals how the ultimate goal of the U.S. internment of Japanese Americans and the United States’ subsequent occupation of Japan was to essentially “brainwash” the Japanese race into demonstrating allegiance to America.

Laura Hillenbrand’s biography titled Unbroken recounts the life of Louie Zamperini and major events that occurred throughout it. Hillenbrand’s purpose was to emphasize the inspirational story of heroic Zamperini as he qualified and participated in the Olympics, as well as describe the endless struggle of pain in the plane crash and in the Japanese POW camps. She also portrays the importance of dignity and resilience and how without it, the chances of surviving the cruel events Louie experienced during World War II would have been minimal.

Double Victory: Multicultural History of America in World War 11”, is a book written by Ronald Takaki was published in the early 2000s. Double Victory shows the wartime responses from many ethnic backgrounds as well as the war at home against racism and the war abroad against fascism. Takaki also shows the roles of; African-Americans, Native-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Asian-Americans, during the war and the sacrifices made for their country. In Double Victory, Takaki introduces different revisionist arguments that I will be discussing in this essay along with the connection it has to previous knowledge of the World War II era, and the relation it has to the understanding of the expansion and contraction of citizenship and equality throughout history.

Not every man who 's fought in a war planned on doing so. In fact, not all of them even want to. It 's rare to find enough people voluntarily willing to lay down their lives for their country, so more often than not militaries used what we would call “citizen soldiers.” Citizen soldiers are exactly what they sound like, regular citizens taken from society and turned into people capable of serving in the military. Although it may seem obvious when plainly written out, citizen soldiers had vastly different experiences compared to career soldiers, and Stephen Ambrose attempted to pin down that specific experience in his book Citizen Soldier. Ambrose uses oral interviews from World War II veterans and other materials to explain the experiences of the common American soldier who served in WWII between D-Day and the eventual surrender of the German forces. However, when examining his book, it 's important to ask how successful Ambrose was in painting an accurate picture of this kind of soldier 's life during his service. Is the information he uses specific to the men who served in Europe, or can it also be linked back to the soldiers in the Pacific? This paper will evaluate his work by comparing it to oral interviews from WWII veterans both from the same areas that Ambrose 's veterans serve in and in locations not included in his work.

In the decades after the “Good War,” many attempts have been made to extol this generation in the media. Myth and the Greatest Generation: A Social History of Americans in World War II by Kenneth D. Rose, attempts to shine light on how life actually was for the generation that survived World War II, and came to be known as the greatest generation, rather than how that generation appears to us today.

World War II stands as a stunning example of America’s heroism on the battlefields of Europe and perseverance on the home front. American citizens sacrificed and provided unprecedented production for the war effort. They were unified in their cause of protecting freedom and spreading democracy. The primary concept of “Double Victory” is the concurrent battles that were being fought by American forces and society at the same time. In other words the Second World War II was also a desperate fight against discrimination for some Americans. For example in Takakis book "Double Victory" it shows stories of the lives of ethnically diverse Americans. In where in his book he demonstrated how an African American soldier in uniform who risks his life fighting in war, was order to move to the rear from a Southern bus driver, somehow this comment forced his white friends to intervene for him. Also, Takaki tells how a Japanese American feels betrayed by his own country and this happened when he and his family are sent to an internment camp without due legal process, but supposedly for the protection of his fellow Americans. In other hand, the book mentioned how one part the U.S military were sent to Europe to rescue a large part of Jewish people from the Nazi concentrations camps, and in the other side the U.S. armies were fighting discrimination in our own land because the reality was much different at home than what we really think about. For example, in cities in the South, blacks