Reception: 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. CT | Event: 5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. CT

This event is free and open to the public. Register today to join us in person or to view the event online.

Join us in conversation with author and historian David Nasaw, PhD, whose new book The Wounded Generation: Coming Home After World War II reexamines postwar America, challenging familiar narratives of triumph and exploring the overlooked realities that veterans—and the country—faced as they struggled to rebuild their lives.

A reception from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. will precede the event, and Nasaw will sign copies of his book following the presentation.

For additional information, please email Connie Gentry, Conference and Programs Manager, at connie.gentry@nationalww2museum.org.

About The Wounded Generation

In its scale, reach, and intensity, World War II was unprecedented—and its effects on those who fought and their families were immeasurable. While the heroism of the men and women who won the war is well documented, far less is known about the pain and hardship they endured upon returning home. In The Wounded Generation, historian David Nasaw reveals how the veterans who came back to a vastly changed nation were not the same people who had left it, weaving together stories of resilience and trauma. Drawing on memoirs, oral histories, and official records, Nasaw introduces us to veterans who would shape postwar America—John F. Kennedy, Robert Dole, Kurt Vonnegut, J. D. Salinger, Harry Belafonte, and others. From the devastating effects and treatments of PTSD to women’s relegation back into domestic roles, to surging racial violence in resistance to social change, The Wounded Generation sheds new light on a forgotten chapter of American history: the turbulent homecoming that reshaped a generation and a nation.

About the Author

David Nasaw is a historian, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and best-selling author. His works include The Last Million, named a best book of the year by NPR, Kirkus Reviews, and History Today, and, according to The Economist, one of the “six must-read books on the Second World War”; The Patriarch, a New York Times Five Best Non-Fiction Books of the Year; Andrew Carnegie, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and the winner of the New-York Historical Society’s American History Book Prize; and The Chief, winner of the Bancroft Prize. He is the Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Professor of History Emeritus at the CUNY Graduate Center and a past president of the Society of American Historians. In 2023, Nasaw was honored by the New York Public Library as a “Library Lion.”