Library Journal
Brave Men is a collection of journalist Pyle's newspaper columns from 1943 and 1944, in which he details the fighting in Europe primarily from the perspective of the common U.S. G.I. This angle of reporting brought the front-line war back to the families of those serving in the armed forces and endeared Pyle to the troops. An essential piece of Americana for all collections. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Ernie Pyle was one of the most effective and well known battlefield correspondents of World War II. Pyle's on-the-spot reporting gave the American public a firsthand view of what war was like for their boys on the front lines he followed American service men into the trenches, battlefield combats, field hospitals, and war ravaged cities of Europe. What he witnessed he was able to vividly record and describe with clarity, sympathy, and grit to give his readership an immediate and accurate sense of the foot soldier's experience. Brave Men is a collection of Pyle's wartime newspaper columns detailing the 1943-44 fighting in Europe and endures as a fitting monument to both one correspondent's courage and journalistic expertise and the battlefield experiences of a generation of young American soldiers in the European theater. Tragically, when Pyle went to the South Pacific to continue his wartime reportage, a sniper's bullet took his life in 1945. Brave Men is an essential title for any personal, academic, or community library World War II collection.
Kirkus Reviews
The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist (1900-45) collected his work from WWII in two bestselling volumes, this second published in 1944, a year before Pyle was killed by a sniper's bullet on Okinawa. In his fine introduction to this new edition, G. Kurt Piehler (History/Univ. of Tennessee at Knoxville) celebrates Pyle's "dense, descriptive style" and his unusual feel for the quotidian GI experience-a personal and human side to war left out of reporting on generals and their strategies. Though Piehler's reminder about wartime censorship seems beside the point, his biographical context-Pyle was escaping a troubled marriage-is valuable. "Kirkus", at the time, noted the hoopla over Pyle (Pulitzer, hugely popular syndicated column, BOMC hype) and decided it was all worth it: "the book doesn't let the reader down." Pyle, of course, captures "the human qualities" of men in combat, but he also provides "an extraordinary sense of the scope of the European war fronts, the variety of services involved, the men and their officers." Despite Piehler's current argument that Pyle ignored much of the war (particularly the seamier stuff), "Kirkus "in 1944 marveled at how much he was able to cover. Back then, we thought, "here's a book that needs no selling." Nowadays, a firm push might be needed to renew interest in this classic of modern journalism.
From the Publisher
As a combat reporter, Pyle surpassed all others working during the Second World War, outwriting his contemporaries, Hemingway included. . . . His concern with the soldiers’ morale and commitment to the cause . . . reveals more than any high-level analyses could. . . . Pyle was a cartographer, meticulously mapping the character of the Americans who chose to fight. . . . His style of combat realism, which eschews the macro and strategic for the micro and human, can be seen in today’s combat reporting from Ukraine . . . where . . . the character of the Ukrainian people . . . has been the driving factor. . . . The collapse of Afghanistan’s military and government came as a surprise to many Americans. . . . Only someone who understood the human side of war—as Pyle certainly did—could have predicted that collapse.” —Elliot Ackerman, The Atlantic
“The welcome republication of Brave Men . . . demonstrates why [Pyle] found such a large and appreciative audience. In sharp, simple prose, Pyle explained to those back home the conditions of life and death on the front. The writing remains fresh and perceptive.” —Foreign Affairs
“A classic collection [by] the most beloved war correspondent of World War II . . . Pyle’s style is what made him so popular back then, and why he is still worth reading today. He looks at the war from a retail level. He mentioned those he encountered by name, giving their home town, and occasionally their street address. . . . His prose is straightforward and spare, highly readable. . . . The book contains some of Pyle’s best writing, including his best-known column, ‘The Death of Captain Waskow.’ . . . It is a reminder of the best in America back in the 1940s. Yet much of what he writes about still exists in today’s small-town and rural America.” ―The Epoch Times
“I personally cherish Brave Men for . . . Pyle’s descriptions of scenes he witnessed; his simple, unassuming style; and his ability to recognize the humanity in everyone he meets. . . . His eye for detail, what is essentially the eye of a poet, is on full display throughout Brave Men and is a masterclass in how embedded witnesses can convey the truth about an experience that cannot be fully understood unless it is lived. . . . Even though he’s been dead for nearly eight decades, Pyle had so much to say about the world we find ourselves living in today.” ―David Chrisinger, from the Introduction
