Center for the literary arts in New York State
THE WOUNDED GENERATION
David Nasaw
7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 7, 2026
University at Albany
Campus Center West Auditorium
1400 Washington Avenue
Albany NY 12222 - See map.
David Nasaw, major American historian and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, is the author of The Wounded Generation: Coming Home After World War II (2025). The heroism of the men and women who won WWII may be well documented, but we know too little about the pain and hardships the veterans endured. Contrary to the prevailing narratives of triumph, this new history presents the largely unacknowledged realities the veterans — and the nation — faced, radically reshaping our understanding of American history.
The Wall Street Journal said, “As [Nasaw]… makes emphatically clear, a good war is an oxymoron. Just wars there are and necessary wars, but there are no good wars.”
Cosponsored by the History Department of the College of Arts and Sciences at UAlbany.
Praise for The Wounded Generation
"Nasaw challenges us to rethink World War II’s domestic impact in The Wounded Generation. Bestowing a new name on the 'greatest generation,' he excavates the war’s consequences for 'the bodies, hearts and minds of those who fought, those who awaited their return and the nation that had won the war but had now to readjust to peace.' Nasaw deftly explores the ambivalent legacy of a war that Americans have been taught to think of as the good one . . . [He] eloquently humanizes the story of an entire generation." —New York Times Book Review
"While it was a war that had to be fought, and one with a successful outcome, World War II wasn’t as good as all that, according to David Nasaw’s The Wounded Generation. Tom Brokaw called the men and women who fought in World War II 'the greatest generation.' Turns out this same generation may also have been the most put upon and longest suffering... PTSD is only one among an Iliad of woes suffered by those who served in combat in World War II and their families who remained stateside. Mr. Nasaw chronicles them all in great detail." — The Wall Street Journal
“Best-selling historian [David] Nasaw deepens the usual approach to WWII's Greatest Generation by examining the real-world costs and sacrifices made by veterans, their families, and society at large... Richly informative and compelling, The Wounded Generation is an important history of the tragedies of war and the triumphs of a democratic society that fully supports veterans' well-being.” — Booklist
“An eye-opening view of a war whose devastating consequences reverberate." — Kirkus
About the author
David Nasaw previous books include The Last Million: Europe's Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War (2020), 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: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy (2012), 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: The Life of William Randolph Hearst, 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.” His father served in the Army Medical Corps in Eritrea during World War II.