The Great War and Modern Memory

Paul Fussell holds the Donald T Regan Chair of English Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. His other books include Wartime and Abroad.

• A Satire Of Circumstance ; The Troglodyte World ; Adversary Proceedings ; Myth, Ritual, and Romance ; Oh What a Literary War ; Theater of War ; Arcadian Recourses ; Soldier Boys ; Persistence and Memory

"One of the best nonfiction works I've ever read. I'm a huge fan of virtually everything Fussell has ever done, but this unique book, which uses literature and social history to examine World War I, may be his best. Unflinching."--James Gray, he Week"Literary and historical materials, in themselves not unfamiliar, are brought together in a probing, sympathetic, and finally illuminating fashion. It is difficult to think of a scholarly work in recent years that has more deeply engaged the reader at both the intellectual and emotional level."--The New Republic (on the previous edition)"Paul Fussell's Great War and Modern Memory introduced an entirely new and creative way of writing both about war and the literature it generates. It has been a profound influence on historians and literary critics alike. It is a model of intelligence and fine writing and will remain a key text in our culture for decades to come."--John KeeganPraise for the previous edition"Skillful, compassionate....An important contribution to our understanding of how we came to make World War I part of our minds."--Frank Kermode, The New York Times Book Review"One doesn't know quite where to begin to praise this book in which literary and historical materials, in themselves not unfamiliar, are brought together in a probing, sympathetic, and finally illuminating fashion. It is difficult to think of a scholarly work in recent years that has more deeply engaged the reader at both the intellectual and emotional level."--The New Republic"A learned and well-balanced book that is also bright and sensitive....A last irony leaps from these pages: the men of the First World War were heroes as great as the cast of the Iliad, yet their words destroyed the concept of themselves, of all warriors, and of war itself as heroic."--The New Yorker