Barbara R. (Crop4Fun) reviewed on + 1217 more book reviews
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John Toland's book celebrates the legacy of the American Volunteer Group in China, but it also paints a heroic picture of the group's leader, Claire Lee Chennault.
Although written for young adults, it does not water down its subject matter. Toland discusses the political situation wherein young Americans went to China to volunteer and/or be hired long and fight the Japanese long before Pearl Harbor. Perhaps more surprisingly, Toland gets into the strategic and tactical importance of what Chennault and his fliers were doing.
Second, it captures a time very much different from today, when American military intervention and public acceptance are invariably tied to whether or not the lives of the public at home are being affected. The idea of young American men wanting to travel halfway around the world to fight in war just because the other side represented tyranny is totally foreign to us today. Perhaps one of the legacies of the generation that fought World War II is that their efforts will never be duplicated because not only their situation was so different than where the world finds itself today, but that their passion and commitment to such abstract ideals as life and liberty has all but perished.
Who else, besides family and friends, would we be willing to lay down our lives for?
This book serves as a tribute to those who answered differently at a time when the world most needed them.
John Toland's book celebrates the legacy of the American Volunteer Group in China, but it also paints a heroic picture of the group's leader, Claire Lee Chennault.
Although written for young adults, it does not water down its subject matter. Toland discusses the political situation wherein young Americans went to China to volunteer and/or be hired long and fight the Japanese long before Pearl Harbor. Perhaps more surprisingly, Toland gets into the strategic and tactical importance of what Chennault and his fliers were doing.
Second, it captures a time very much different from today, when American military intervention and public acceptance are invariably tied to whether or not the lives of the public at home are being affected. The idea of young American men wanting to travel halfway around the world to fight in war just because the other side represented tyranny is totally foreign to us today. Perhaps one of the legacies of the generation that fought World War II is that their efforts will never be duplicated because not only their situation was so different than where the world finds itself today, but that their passion and commitment to such abstract ideals as life and liberty has all but perished.
Who else, besides family and friends, would we be willing to lay down our lives for?
This book serves as a tribute to those who answered differently at a time when the world most needed them.
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