“Before the Greatest Generation, there was the Forgotten Generation of World War I . . . wonderfully engaging” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). “Richard Rubin has done something that will never be possible for anyone to do again. His interviews with the last American World War I veterans—who have all since died—bring to vivid life a cataclysm that changed our world forever but that remains … forever but that remains curiously forgotten here.” —Adam Hochschild, author of To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914–1918
In 2003, eighty-five years after the end of World War I, Richard Rubin set out to see if he could still find and talk to someone who had actually served in the American Expeditionary Forces during that colossal conflict. Ultimately he found dozens, aged 101 to 113, from Cape Cod to Carson City, who shared with him at the last possible moment their stories of America’s Great War.
Nineteenth-century men and women living in the twenty-first century, they were self-reliant, humble, and stoic, never complaining, but still marveling at the immensity of the war they helped win, and the complexity of the world they helped create. Though America has largely forgotten their war, you will never forget them, or their stories. A decade in the making, The Last of the Doughboys is the most sweeping look at America’s First World War in a generation, a glorious reminder of the tremendously important role America played in the “war to end all wars,” as well as a moving meditation on character, grace, aging, and memory.
“An outstanding and fascinating book. By tracking down the last surviving veterans of the First World War and interviewing them with sympathy and skill, Richard Rubin has produced a first-rate work of reporting.” —Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia
“I cannot remember a book about that huge and terrible war that I have enjoyed reading more in many years.” —Michael Korda, The Daily Beast
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Beautifully written interviews with Doughboys who have never forgotten their time at the front.
This is easy to read, and, when he bothers to take us to France, he knows what he’s talking about; he’s often attractively whimsical. There’s an awful lot of amateur gerontology here, and he quotes every lyric of every tin pan alley song that sold more than 3 copies, then tries to assign the genre a weight of cultural illumination I don’t think it …
Explored a subject long forgotten. Emphasized stores of common soldiers, many who served, but never saw combat
The author brings to life the almost forgotten life in the France of 1917-1919. Through interviews with a few dozen centenarians, none less than 102 and a few over 110, we are introduced to the lives of American soldiers, marines, and seamen during the Great War. No other work of my acquaintance has shown us the lives of these brave young men …
Richard Rubin’s The Last of the Doughboys is easily one of the best books – fiction or non-fiction – that I have read in a very long time. Last year I read, and liked, The Long Way Home (David Laskin), which tells the stories of a dozen European-American immigrants who return to the old country as soldiers in Uncle Sam’s army. That book makes a …
I have a project to do and my character is the dough boys