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The past isn’t always a foreign country; sometimes it’s more like a fun-house mirror, reflecting the present in ways both recognizable and strange. Consider the United States in December, 1942, a year into a terrible war: different and yet not so different from the United States in March, 2021. They had blackouts, sugar and gas rationing, and war work. We’ve had lockdowns, yeast and toilet-paper shortages, and Zoom meetings. They had anxiety, grief, sacrifice, boredom, and a strong sense of unity and national purpose. We have . . . some of those things.
Readings from the wartime press, in December, 1942, as America took stock on the first anniversary of Pearl Harbor: