{"id":14775,"date":"2011-08-03T11:44:57","date_gmt":"2011-08-03T15:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=14775"},"modified":"2014-05-17T15:30:51","modified_gmt":"2014-05-17T19:30:51","slug":"unbroken-a-world-war-ii-story-of-survival-resilience-and-redemption-by-laura-hillenbrand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/unbroken-a-world-war-ii-story-of-survival-resilience-and-redemption-by-laura-hillenbrand\/","title":{"rendered":"Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2011\/08\/Unbroken.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-28039\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2011\/08\/Unbroken.jpg\" alt=\"Unbroken\" width=\"940\" height=\"1423\" srcset=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2011\/08\/Unbroken.jpg 948w, https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2011\/08\/Unbroken-528x800.jpg 528w, https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2011\/08\/Unbroken-800x1210.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px\" \/><\/a>Clearly, <em>Unbroken<\/em>\u00a0falls into the &#8216;you can&#8217;t make this stuff up&#8217;-category. Within the almost 500 pages of print (or 14 hours of listening\u00a0\u2013 narrated with such dignity by award-winning actor Edward Herrman!), you&#8217;ll experience just about every human emotion &#8230; from elation to misery, hope to despair, devotion to revulsion, trust to rejection, and all the nuances in between.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/laurahillenbrandbooks.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Laura Hillenbrand<\/a>, the mega-bestselling author with <em>Seabiscuit: An American Legend<\/em>, continued to come across the name and achievements of Louis Zamperini while researching her story about a young racehorse that could, would, and did. About a year after <em>Seabiscuit<\/em>&#8216;s phenomenal debut, Hillenbrand called Zamperini. Some seven years later, Hillenbrand had another spectacular story to tell the world &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>As the Olympic athlete who got to meet Hitler, who should have been the runner to break the four-minute mile, who survived a plane crash that left him floating for 47 days in the open Pacific only to endure the most atrocious odyssey of abuse as a Japanese POW during Word War II, Louis Zamperini is irrefutably the star of <em>Unbroken.<\/em>\u00a0That said, what makes Hillenbrand&#8217;s book so much more than a biography or historical tome, is her remarkable ability to enhance (but never embellish) Zamperini&#8217;s experiences and ordeals with an equally unforgettable, sprawling cast of many, many characters.<\/p>\n<p>Without his older brother Pete, Zamperini would never have become a remarkable runner. Without his Army Air Corps roommate and buddy Lt. Russell Allen Phillips (Phil), and even Sgt. Francis McNamara (Mac), Zamperini couldn&#8217;t have survived the endless days adrift after the crash of their Green Hornet airplane. Without the empathetic leadership of Lt. Bill Harris in the infamous Ofuna POW camp and, in a twist of horrific irony, without Zamperini&#8217;s consuming hatred for his captor Mutsuhiro Watanabe (&#8220;the Bird&#8221;)\u00a0\u2013 one of history&#8217;s most heinous POW torturers\u00a0\u2013 Zamperini might not have survived his hellish odyssey in Japan. Most importantly, without his family\u00a0\u2013 especially his mother who adamantly refused to believe the reports of her younger son&#8217;s death \u2013 and his persevering wife Cynthia, surely Zamperini would never have recovered from his post-war induced alcoholism and mental collapse.<\/p>\n<p>With spectacular details only primary sources could provide, and a scrupulous patience to weave all the intricate strands together, <em>Unbroken<\/em>\u00a0is a stellar achievement. That said, any recommendation to potential readers comes with a caveat: the horror is relentless through much of this brilliant book. Graphic, tormented titles \u2013 including\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/2010\/11\/08\/tears-in-the-darkness-the-story-of-the-bataan-death-march-and-its-aftermath-by-michael-norman-and-elizabeth-norman\/\">Tears in the Darkness<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>by Michael Norman and Elizabeth Norman, upcoming <em>Nanjing Requiem <\/em>by National Book Award winner Ha Jin, and of course, the now-classic\u00a0<em>The Rape of Nanking<\/em>\u00a0by Iris Chang whose inability to unsee the horrific images she lived with for too many years played a decisive role in her 2004 suicide\u00a0\u2013 serve as both testimony and warning. We cannot, should not turn away \u2013 knowledge is so much a part of prevention (and redemption)\u00a0\u2013\u00a0and yet for our own sanity, personal discretion must indeed be advised.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clearly, Unbroken\u00a0falls into the &#8216;you can&#8217;t make this stuff up&#8217;-category. Within the almost 500 pages of print (or 14 hours of listening\u00a0\u2013 narrated with such dignity by award-winning actor Edward Herrman!), you&#8217;ll experience just about every human emotion &#8230; from elation to misery, hope to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,81,76,60,20],"tags":[6608,75,2174,10,11,123,2175,2176,2177,45],"class_list":["post-14775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-audio","category-japanese","category-nonethnic-specific","category-nonfiction","tag-bookdragon","tag-death","tag-edward-herrmann","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-illness","tag-laura-hillenbrand","tag-louis-zamperini","tag-unbroken","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/unbroken-a-world-war-ii-story-of-survival-resilience-and-redemption-by-laura-hillenbrand\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Clearly, Unbroken\u00a0falls into the &#8216;you can&#8217;t make this stuff up&#8217;-category. Within the almost 500 pages of print (or 14 hours of listening\u00a0\u2013 narrated with such dignity by award-winning actor Edward Herrman!), you&#8217;ll experience just about every human emotion &#8230; from elation to misery, hope to...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/unbroken-a-world-war-ii-story-of-survival-resilience-and-redemption-by-laura-hillenbrand\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-03T15:44:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-05-17T19:30:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2011\/08\/Unbroken.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"948\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1435\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/unbroken-a-world-war-ii-story-of-survival-resilience-and-redemption-by-laura-hillenbrand\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand - BookDragon","og_description":"Clearly, Unbroken\u00a0falls into the &#8216;you can&#8217;t make this stuff up&#8217;-category. 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