The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War

“The Long Way Home is a riveting remembrance of the Great War by a master writer…. Deeply compelling.” — Douglas Brinkley

“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

The author of the award-winning The Children’s Blizzard, David Laskin, returns with a remarkable true story of the immigrants who risked their lives fighting for America during the Great War.

From the author of The Children's Blizzard comes an epic story of the sacrifice and service of an immigrant generation.

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, one-third of the nation's population had been born overseas or had a parent who was an immigrant. At the peak of U.S. involvement in the war, nearly one in five American soldiers was foreign-born. Many of these immigrant soldiers—most of whom had been drafted—knew little of America outside of tight-knit ghettos and backbreaking labor. Yet World War I would change their lives and ultimately reshape the nation itself. Italians, Jews, Poles, Norwegians, Slovaks, Russians, and Irishmen entered the army as aliens and returned as Americans, often as heroes.

In The Long Way Home, award-winning writer David Laskin traces the lives of a dozen men, eleven of whom left their childhood homes in Europe, journeyed through Ellis Island, and started over in a strange land. After detailing the daily realities of immigrant life in the factories, farms, mines, and cities of a rapidly growing nation, Laskin tells the heartbreaking stories of how these men—both conscripts and volunteers—joined the army, were swept into the ordeal of boot camp, and endured the month of hell that ended the war at the Argonne, where they truly became Americans. Those who survived were profoundly altered—and their experiences would shape the lives of their families as well.

Epic, inspiring, and masterfully written, The Long Way Home is the unforgettable true story of the Great War, the world it remade, and the men who fought for a country not of their birth, but which held the hope and opportunity of a better way of life.

“Riveting. . . . 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 compelling book. . . . Imaginative. . . . Lasking mines family legends and official documents to tell the stories of these ordinary foot soldiers from Italy and Ireland, Poland and Russia, Slovakia and Norway. . . . Today’s immigrants don’t become Yanks in the trenches of France. That transformation occurs in the farmlands of Florida, the factories of Pennsylvania, the laboratories of California and, sometimes, on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. This story, like this country, never ends.” - The Washington Post

“Compelling. . . . Laskin has built his book on dozens of interviews, family and regimental histories, military records and historical archives. He clearly has a firm grasp on a lot of detail, both military and personal.” - The Seattle Times

“David Laskin’s latest, The Long Way Home, reads with the heart-quickening pace of a novel as he focuses his gaze on a band of real-life characters who emigrated to the United States in the years just before World War I.” - The Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A marvelous craftsman, Laskin interweaves the soldiers’ personal profiles into a greater context, which positions his work equally as a history that deftly covers the background of the war and all its contemporary political ramifications, and also as a keen piece of social reflection on the role of the immigrant in shaping the fabric of American society. Laskin’s work also proves invaluable for readers interested in World War I military operations, as he follows the twelve men into battle, offering detailed accounts of their experiences and bravery on the front lines.” - BookPage

“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

“Laskin’s 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 Eleven Month, Eleven Day, Eleventh Hour

“David Laskin’s The Long Way Home is a brilliant blending of social analysis and personal narrative, which recovers the experience of a ‘lost generation’—the immigrant ‘greenhorns’ who became Americans through service on the battlefields of World War I.” - Richard Slotkin, author of Gunfighter Nation

“The Long Way Home is 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

“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