The triumphant story of baseball and America after World War II. In 1945 Major League Baseball had become a ghost of itself. Parks were half empty, the balls were made with fake rubber, and mediocre replacements roamed the fields, as hundreds of players, including the game's biggest stars, were serving abroad, devoted to unconditional Allied victory in World War II. But by the spring of 1946, the country was ready to heal. The war was finally over, and as America's fathers and brothers were coming home, so too were the sport's greats. Ted Williams, Stan Musial, and Joe DiMaggio returned with bats blazing, making the season a true classic that ended in a thrilling seven-game World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals. America also witnessed the beginning of a new era in baseball: it was a year of attendance records, the first year Yankee Stadium held night games, the last year the Green Monster wasn't green, and, most significant, Jackie Robinson's first year playing in the Brooklyn Dodgers' system. The Victory Season brings to vivid life these years of baseball and war, including the littleknown "World Series" that servicemen played in a captured Hitler Youth stadium in the fall of 1945. Robert Weintraub's extensive research and vibrant storytelling enliven the legendary season that embodies what we now think of as the game's golden era.

Did Confederate armies attack too often for their own good during the Civil War? Was the relentless, sometimes costly effort to preserve territory a blunder? These questions about Confederate strategy have dogged historians since Appomattox. Many have come to believe that the South might have won the Civil War if it had only avoided head-on battles, conducted an aggressive guerrilla campaign, and manoeuvred across wide swaths of territory. This volume offers a consideration of this widely-held theory.

A noted historian examines the impact of culture and politics on the wartime attitudes and experiences of Americans and their expectations concerning the postwar world.

Rare color photographs of the World War II years.

This series offers to students of the Civil War, either those continuing or those just beginning their exciting journey into the past, concise overviews of important persons, events, and themes in that remarkable period of America's history."--BOOK JACKET.

A collection of original World War II stories includes contributions by such authors as Ralph Peters, David Hagberg, and Harold Robbins.

From the mountains of Italy to the beaches of Normandy, and from the deserts of North Africa to the ruined cities of Germany, experience the history of the Second World War in Western Europe from 1939-1945 in an entirely different way.Using unpublished letters and diaries, follow the journeys of some fifty Allied soldiers (American, British, French, Canadian...) as they liberate the continent from Nazi rule, sometimes at the cost of their own lives. Arranged in chronological order and placed in historical context, their stories and letters are illustrated with many personal photographs, war memorabilia and original uniforms.Having miraculously escaped wartime censorship, these new first-hand testimonies are transcribed as is, whether they come from an elite soldier, a combat medic or a USO dancer. These poignant writings, completed in the mud of the European battlefields, reveal the hopes, doubts and fears of these young people sent to hell, making Till Victory first and foremost a book about peace.