A Different World...A Different War
I've got something on my mind this afternoon and thought I'd do a quick blog about it. Curious what you all think.
Looking at the arts - literature and film - there is an endless fascination and countless stories to be told about the years surrounding World War I and World War II, particularly, I think, World War II. Seventy and 100 years later there are still new books and movies coming out every year.
Right now I'm reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which tells the story of a young girl in Nazi Germany. I also read City of Thieves by Daniel Benioff this year, which is about the siege of Leningrad during World War II. Tatiana de Rosnay's book Sarah's Key is a haunting story about a Jewish family in Nazi-occupied France, which I read when I was still living in Germany. And one of my all-time favorite books is Corrie Ten Boom's The Hiding Place, which tells the true story of Corrie's family hiding Jews in their Netherland's home during World War II. If you've never heard of it or read it, I highly recommend it.
Keeping the theme of World Wars on my mind, Tom and I had a Downton Abbey marathon this weekend. We don't have TV so we haven't been watching the series on PBS. This summer I got season one from the library and we both really enjoyed it so we've been watching season 2 and 3. The Book Thief and Downton Abbey both touch on the impacts citizens and families faced during the war, one of them being food shortages. It got me thinking about our most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I know it's a different time, a different age, different wars but it seems American were less impacted by the recent wars even though it's been more than ten years since the first one began. There were no raised taxes that I know of to help pay for the war effort, no war bonds, no shortages of essential services or food stuffs, and obviously no draft. The only impacts I can think of are perhaps higher gasoline prices and changes in security procedures at airports. Individual families of service members, diplomats and contractors have certainly been impacted but most Americans lived their normal day-to-day lives with little to no impact or interruption. With only the occasional news report to remind us all of the wars being fought in foreign lands.
I think there is a greater distance, a gulf, between those who fought these wars and those at home. Only time will tell but I don't think we'll see the breadth of movies and books about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that still come out about World War II. What do you think?
Looking at the arts - literature and film - there is an endless fascination and countless stories to be told about the years surrounding World War I and World War II, particularly, I think, World War II. Seventy and 100 years later there are still new books and movies coming out every year.
Right now I'm reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which tells the story of a young girl in Nazi Germany. I also read City of Thieves by Daniel Benioff this year, which is about the siege of Leningrad during World War II. Tatiana de Rosnay's book Sarah's Key is a haunting story about a Jewish family in Nazi-occupied France, which I read when I was still living in Germany. And one of my all-time favorite books is Corrie Ten Boom's The Hiding Place, which tells the true story of Corrie's family hiding Jews in their Netherland's home during World War II. If you've never heard of it or read it, I highly recommend it.
Keeping the theme of World Wars on my mind, Tom and I had a Downton Abbey marathon this weekend. We don't have TV so we haven't been watching the series on PBS. This summer I got season one from the library and we both really enjoyed it so we've been watching season 2 and 3. The Book Thief and Downton Abbey both touch on the impacts citizens and families faced during the war, one of them being food shortages. It got me thinking about our most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I know it's a different time, a different age, different wars but it seems American were less impacted by the recent wars even though it's been more than ten years since the first one began. There were no raised taxes that I know of to help pay for the war effort, no war bonds, no shortages of essential services or food stuffs, and obviously no draft. The only impacts I can think of are perhaps higher gasoline prices and changes in security procedures at airports. Individual families of service members, diplomats and contractors have certainly been impacted but most Americans lived their normal day-to-day lives with little to no impact or interruption. With only the occasional news report to remind us all of the wars being fought in foreign lands.
I think there is a greater distance, a gulf, between those who fought these wars and those at home. Only time will tell but I don't think we'll see the breadth of movies and books about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that still come out about World War II. What do you think?
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