Montgomery in the Good War: Portrait of a Southern City, 1939-1946

Montgomery in the Good War is a richly textured account of a southern city and its people during World War II. Using newspaper accounts, interviews, letters, journals, and his own memory of the time, Wesley Newton reconstructs wartime-era Montgomery, Alabama–a sleepy southern capital that was transformed irreversibly during World War II. The war affected every segment of Montgomery society: black and white, rich and poor, male and female, those who fought in Europe and the Pacific and those who stayed on the home front. Newton follows Montgomerians chronologically through the war from Pearl Harbour to Hiroshima as they experience patriotism, draft and enlistment, rationing, scarcity drives, and the deaths of loved ones. His use of small vignettes based on personal recollections adds drama and poignancy to the story. Montgomery in the Good War is an important reminder that wars are waged at home as well as abroad and that their impact reverberates well beyond those who fight on the front lines. Those who came of age during the war will recognise themselves in this moving volume. It will also be enlightening to those who have lived in times of relative peace.