Books: ‘The War’ powerful, moves with real stories

This is the companion volume to the magnificent seven-part, 14-hour PBS series, “The War.” The book, much like the television series, is nothing short of stunning.

Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns focus on the citizens of four towns: Luverne, Minn.; Sacramento, Calif.; Waterbury, Conn.; and Mobile, Ala. They follow the day-to-day lives of more than 40 men and women throughout the war years. What makes this such an exceptional work is that the authors have captured the voices of ordinary people, not the usual historians or scholars. These are people who could have been your next-door neighbors, and their stories are compelling and memorable.

Enriched by maps and hundreds of photographs, this is an intimate, profoundly enlightening chronicle of one of the most devastating wars in history. As Burns points out in his introduction, it was a war that brought out the best and the worst in a generation and blurred the two so that at times they became almost indistinguishable.

Between 1939 and 1945, an estimated 50 million to 60 million people died as a result of the war — so many people in so many places that the exact number will never truly be known. More than 405,000 American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines were along those who perished.

Burns says he learned while conducting his interviews that no nation should embark upon any war without first understanding its cost and without being certain that its objectives are really worth the price.

While World War II was fought in thousands of places around the globe, this remarkable book concentrates on the story of four American towns and how their citizens coped. It should appeal both to those who know little about the war and others who remember it only too well.