Chander is a
History Buff!
Why I call myself a history buff?
I have a strong and special interest in Family
History, My birthplace History, Pre-independence Indian History, World History
and in particular World War History! I
was a poor student in the subject of history in my school days and scored
lowest marks in the school final! But how the interest in history came to me is
not known. I am an ardent reader of books of all subjects and collect old books
from pavement second-hand book shops for my personal library! This pandemic
period gave me a big opportunity to dwell into my treasure of books, and I
started to give a second reading of world war books, initially for the original
wartime photos and later the complete stories! I have
a good collection of coffee table books on the same subject with real time
photos, maps etc. The modern internet technology is a gateway to go back to the
future and view many original footages of wartime.
In this first episode, I would like to share one of a
rare book from my collections of World War Books!
First and foremost I wish to speak about a series of
pocket books – “ U.S.A. A Portrait in
Miniature of America and Americans in Wartime”, published by ”The U.S.A.Publishing Company” and printed in The U.S.A., during the First
World War, in the time span of 1943 and 1944.
This collection of series contains 10 books , in a
single bound, speaks a lot of America and Americans in Wartime. The cost of
each poket series was Rs.3 Anna and sold by Higginbothams ( A stamp of
‘HIGGINBOTHAMS’ is found in a page). Some unknown history buff like me bought
the series during the wartime, bounded it and after many years this book came
to the pavement! I bought this for a small amount of rupees! ( you may guess!).
Let me share on various topics covered in each small
booklet of about 65 pages. The front cover
looks great and the back cover has a message – ‘pass this on to a friend’.
In the one of the booklet opening page contains A
Message from The President of The United States – Franklin D.Roosevelt and
General D.Eisenhower, Commander in chief of Allied Forces in North Africa
issued an Order of the Day, May 8,1943. The other interesting topics found are
: Why Americans Fight, An Art Boom in Wartime, Music in America, Education in
Overalls, Seeds for a Better World, Border without Boyonets ( U.S.A. and
Canada), Brothers in Arms, Bomber Team –Story in photography, One World – as
reported by a noted American, Wendell L.Willkie, on his trip by air around a
world at war. He was a Republican presidential candidate in 1940, contested
against President Roosevelt!
There are so many articles and stories of interest
collected from various magazines of that time like: NY Times, Collier’s,
Newsweek, Christian Science Monitor, Scientific American, Fortune, Saturday
Evening Post, Science News Letters, Reader’s Digest, Coronet, Sea Power, This
Week, Life, Science Digest, Survey Graphic, Common Ground, The Saturday Review
of Literature and so many other magazines and journals. The Editors page
appears in all the series. Most interesting pages for me is the Picture Essay
covering about 25 plus photographs of the war in action, cities and towns
during that period, lifestyles of people and many. About the invention of
Penicillin, developed in 1929,an article says, it is an unparalleled weapon
against death, historically one of the greatest accomplishments of scientific
and medical research of 1940s.
The photo gallery may inspire you to search for a
copy, if at all available anywhere in the world, to own this antique rarest of
the rare pocket books of American wartime history! History buffs may agree with
me!
Next
episode of Chander is a History Buff will
be published soon…..
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