Roy Hoopes spent some of the war years at home and some in the South Pacific. A career journalist and award-winning biographer, he has written many books including When the Stars Went to War: Hollywood and World War II and the recent novel, Our Man in Washington.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. "A Date Which Will Live in Infamy..."2. Washington at War3. Industry at War4. Keeping the Country Informed5. The War Effort - Almost Everyone Was Involved6. "Don't You Know There's a War On"?7. Wives and Children8. The Home Front9. The Ultimate Cost of Victory10. 1945 - The End11. AftermathIndex

"Compelling." —New York Times"Impressive and moving." —Los Angeles Times"[An] endlessly surprising personal history." —United Press International"Hoopes interviewed nearly 200 Americans for this oral history of the home front. Many of them speak wonderingly of an almost innocent exhilaration triggered by World War II [that] showed Americans something larger than themselves. This collection of memories ranges over wartime Washington, the transformation of industries, the families stumbling around in blacked-out houses...hundreds of nostalgic oddments...Such a collage has an effect of Whitmanesque tenderness." —Time Magazine