By the staff at Covered Treasures
“Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.”—Alexander Hamilton
May is the month to pay tribute to the men and women who have served in the U.S. military. It’s the perfect time to learn the history of the U.S. in relation to the wars we have fought.
Masters of the Air
By Donald Miller (Simon Schuster) $23
Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. This is a story of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with an account of the hunger marches that the captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed.
Valiant Women
By Lena Andrews (Mariner Books) $33
Valiant Women is the story of the 350,000 American women who served in uniform during World War II. These incredible women served in every service branch, in every combat theater, and in nearly two-thirds of the available military occupations at the time. They were pilots, codebreakers, ordnance experts, gunnery instructors, metalsmiths, chemists, translators, parachute riggers, truck drivers, radar men, pigeon trainers, and much more. They were directly involved in some of the most important moments of the war, from the D-Day landings to the peace negotiations in Paris.
The War to End All Wars
By Russell Freedman (Clarion Books) $12
This book for young readers illuminates the complex and rarely discussed subject of World War I: The tangled relationships and alliances of many nations, the introduction of modern weaponry, and top-level military decisions that resulted in thousands upon thousands of casualties all contributed to the “great war,” which people hoped and believed would be the only conflict of its kind.
What Was Pearl Harbor?
By Patricia Brennan Demuth (Penguin Workshop) $8
On Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese war planes appeared out of nowhere to bomb the American base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. It was a highly secretive and devastating attack: four battleships sunk, more than 2,000 servicemen died, and the United States was propelled into World War II. In a compelling, easy-to-read narrative, children will learn all about a pivotal moment in American history.
The Vietnam War
By Geoffrey Ward & Kenneth Burns (Vintage) $25
More than 40 years have passed since the end of the Vietnam War, but its memory continues to loom large in the national psyche. This book offers a fresh and insightful account of the long and brutal conflict that reunited Vietnam while dividing the United States as nothing else had since the Civil War. Most of the voices that echo from these pages belong to less exalted men and women—those who fought in the war as well as those who fought against it, both victims and victors—willing for the first time to share their memories of the war as it really was.
Colorado Women in World War II
By Gail M. Beaton (University Press of Colorado) $34
This book interweaves nearly 80 oral histories of World War II—including interviews, historical studies, newspaper accounts, and organizational records—and historical photographs (many from the interviewees themselves) to shed light on women’s participation in the war, exploring the dangers and triumphs they felt, the nature of their work, and the lasting ways in which the war influenced their lives.
The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
By Stacy Schiff (Back Bay Books) $22
Samuel Adams helped to mastermind the Boston Tea Party. He employed every tool available to rally a town, a colony, and eventually a band of colonies behind him, creating the cause that created a country. For his efforts, he became the most wanted man in America: When Paul Revere rode to Lexington in 1775, it was to warn Samuel Adams that he was about to be arrested for treason. This book highlights Adams’ improbable life, illuminating his transformation from the aimless son of a well-off family to tireless, beguiling radical who mobilized the colonies. Arresting, original, and surprisingly dramatic, this is a long-overdue chapter in the history of our nation.
Until next month, happy reading.
The staff at Covered Treasures can be reached at ocn.me@books.
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