This was a really good book. It started from the premise that all of the writing about the "Greatest Generation" might be overdoing it a bit. Yes, they survived the Depression, and fought World War II, but there was a seamy underside to all of it as well. The book goes through the experience of the soldier and the home front and persuasively argues that much of what we "remember" that generation during the war was based on mythmaking that occurred later.
Very interesting book.