From the author of The Children’s Blizzard, the true story of twelve young immigrants who fought for their adoptive country in the First World War…
The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War
“There is perhaps no greater patriotism than to fight for one’s adopted country, and David Laskin’s The Long Way Home tells the riveting and essentially unknown story of twelve soldiers who risked their lives for the United States of America, a nation in which none of them had been born. With the epic history of the Great War as his backdrop, Laskin has vividly brought these extraordinary, colorful men to life and created, overall, an absolute masterpiece.”
—Andrew Carroll, editor of War Letters and Behind the Lines
“A riveting remembrance of the Great War by a master writer. David Laskin, by homing in on the lives of a dozen immigrants to Ellis Island, is able to tell a grand American saga about the true cost of democracy. All around a deeply compelling narrative.”
—Douglas Brinkley, author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America
“Moving, revealing, and lovingly researched, this book is a must read, and a great read, for any of us whose forebears came from overseas—meaning just about all of us.”
—Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City
“The American immigrant experience has been examined through so many lenses that it is hard to imagine an entirely fresh approach. David Laskin has found one. His tracing of young immigrants, figuratively and literally, from Ellis Island to the trenches of World War I France blends moving personal stories, sociology, culture and military history. The result is a marvelous evocation of what it means to become an American and the many paths to that end.”
—Joseph Persico, author of Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour
A Note from the Author
As the grandson of immigrants, I have long been fascinated by the heroism of those who left their ancestral homes at the turn of the last century to start over in the New World. In The Long Way Home, I tell the stories of twelve immigrants who took this heroism into war. These sons of humble, struggling families left Europe in search of freedom and opportunity—and ended up in the trenches of France and Belgium fighting with the armed forces of a country not yet their own. In the crucible of combat, they became soldiers, comrades, buddies, leaders—above all, they became Americans.
In telling these stories, I have tried to capture the sacrifice and transformation not only of twelve heroic men but of an heroic generation.
David Laskin