Tom Brokaw’s popular book, The Greatest Generation, suggests that survivors among the 16 million Americans who fought in World War II came home and “joined in joyous and short-lived celebrations, then immediately began the task of rebuilding their lives and the world they wanted.” The reality historian Thomas Childers documents in his book Soldier from the War Returning is far more complicated—and painful. “Wars are not clean or neat,” he writes, “and neither is their aftermath.” As veterans returned from defeating the Nazis and Imperial Japan, a common refrain from family, friends and neighbors was taken up across the country: “He was never the same after the war.”

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English scholar Peter Conn presents a literary history of the American 1930s. Priya Ratneshwar
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Historian Barbara Savage's new book examines tensions between faith and political activism in black churches. Read more...

Graduate student Stephan Zink sees history rising from the ruins. B. Davin Stengel
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Penn Humanities Forum celebrates 10 years of exploring the human adventure. Peter Nichols
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