In the summer of 1932, at the height of the Depression, some forty-five thousand World War I veterans—whites and blacks together—descended on Washington, D.C., from all over the country to demand the bonus promised them eight years earlier for their wartime service. Fearing violence after the Senate defeated the “bonus bill” Herbert Hoover’s Army Chief of Staff, Douglas MacArthur, led tanks through the streets on July 28th to evict the bonus marchers.

Through seminal research, including interviews with the last surviving witnesses, Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen tell the full and dramatic story of the Bonus Army, recovering the voices of ordinary men who dared tilt at powerful injustice. The march ultimately transformed the nation, inspiring Congress to pass the G. I. Bill of Rights in 1944, one of the most important pieces of social legislation in our history, which in large part created America’s middle class. The Bonus Army is an epic story in the saga of our country.

Praise for The Bonus Army:

“A haunting, compellingly written and marvelously researched book…an important contribution to American history.”—Los Angeles Times

“Revealing and bleakly fascinating…The book’s most haunting aspect is its verbal and pictorial record of the marchers’ individual experiences.”—New York Times

“Exactly the kind of book publishers should be giving us more of—responsible popular history, researched to the footnoted standards of the academy but written for the pleasure of general readers who are looking for a good story…A rewarding book.”—Newsday