The book at war: how reading shaped conflict and conflict shaped reading, by Andrew Pettegree

 

This is a fascinating history of books and reading during wartime. Focusing to a large extent on 20th century wars, primarily World Wars I & II, this book discusses how the wars impacted publishing, booksellers, libraries, and reading, and conversely, how books and publishing affected the war and people's perceptions of war. Books were used as propaganda to build the case for war. Books were also a major casualty of the wars, with hundreds of millions of books destroyed through bombing, book burning, or other means. Author Andrew Pettegree shows how book burning was not limited to the famous Nazi book burning that we all know about, but it was a common feature of war and regularly performed in the United States, such as when the U.S. entered World War I. The rise of the paperback book also coincided nicely with the need for light-weight and smaller editions of popular books that soldiers could fit into their pockets. The delivery of books to soldiers on the front lines was an important part of supporting troops, and Pettegree details how the allies collected donations and raided libraries and bookstores to provide reading material and entertainment for the soldiers. During and after the wars, victors on all sides raided libraries and bookstores to steal valuable books and manuscripts. Many of these items ended up in the Soviet Union or the United States and other allies, preserved in research libraries. There is such a wealth of research and reporting in this book that this review can only scratch the surface. This is a deeply-researched and valuable contribution to 20th century history.