Time, Ordinary People, pgs. 3-36 Summary and Analysis

Tom Brokaw is born in 1940, a time when America was in between the Great Depression and World War II. America had been in a period of great prosperity in the years before the Depression but this quickly changed. A child born into the prosperity of the 1920s, he saw how quickly life changed during the Depression with the bank failures and massive unemployment.

Franklin Roosevelt becomes President and promises a program called the New Deal to revive the economy and end the Depression. In Germany, Adolf Hitler comes to power and starts invading numerous countries in Europe. Stalin is in power in Russia and Francisco Franco is the leader of Spain. The world is on the brink of war.

Pearl Harbor is attacked on December 7, 1941 and America entered World War II. The involvement...