Conscientious Objector
Michael Goldfarb tells the stories of Americans who lived through World War Two. Meredith Dallas was an actor and teacher who spent 18 months in prison as a conscientious objector.
7 December 2021 marks the eightieth anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and with it America's entry into World War II.
Americans' war experience was substantially different from that of Britons. Michael Goldfarb's father was among the World War II generation christened "The Greatest Generation" in popular culture. He uses the stories he heard growing up from the Americans who fought the war to explore those differences both during the conflict and in the years immediately following.
Meredith Dallas was Michael's mentor, a professor of theatre and a fine actor, who spent 18 months in prison as a conscientious objector.
These are memories imperfect and embellished but they create a picture of what America was like during the war years and how the war came to be woven into America's national myth. He acknowledges just how mighty the forces were that propelled the children of these veterans away from that myth when the call came to serve in Vietnam.
Last on
More episodes
Broadcast
- Wed 1 Dec 2021 22:45Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3
Death in Trieste
Watch: My Deaf World
The Book that Changed Me
Five figures from the arts and science introduce books that changed their lives and work.
Podcast
-
The Essay
Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.