When Dreams Came True: The Gi Bill and the Making of Modern America
The G.I. Bill has been hailed as the Marshall Plan for America. It offered to pay college expenses for military veterans returning from World War II, making it a stairway to the middle class that was soon utilized by millions. The result was a social revolution leading to suburbia and even to our present information age. Author Bennett, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated reporter (Lambert Simnel and the Battle of Stoke, St. Martin's, 1987), feels that the huge education bill not only prevented a return to the Great Depression but suggests it actually headed off a Marxist surge in America. Bennett examines with journalistic verve the forces that made the great social experiment necessary and the political maneuvers that made it possible. With enthusiasm he relates how university faculties at first disdained the surging vets but soon came to cherish their pragmatic determination, which democratized higher education forever. Bennett offers an enthusiastic and detailed study of a necessary area. Recommended for public and academic libraries.?Raymond L. Puffer, U.S. Air Force History Prog., Edwards AFB, Cal.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.