The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell
The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell
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The Great War and Modern Memory

Author: Paul Fussell

Narrator: James Anderson Foster

Unabridged: 15 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 11/20/2018


Synopsis

Winner of both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and named by the Modern Library one of the twentieth century's 100 Best Non-Fiction Books, Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory was universally acclaimed on publication in 1970. Today, Fussell's landmark study remains as original and gripping as ever: a literate, literary, and unapologetic account of the Great War, the war that changed a generation, ushered in the modern era, and revolutionized how we see the world.

This brilliant work illuminates the trauma and tragedy of modern warfare in fresh, revelatory ways. Exploring the work of Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, Edmund Blunden, David Jones, Isaac Rosenberg, and Wilfred Owen, Fussell supplies contexts, both actual and literary, for those writers who—with conspicuous imaginative and artistic meaning—most effectively memorialized World War I as an historical experience. Dispensing with literary theory and elevated rhetoric, Fussell grounds literary texts in the mud and trenches of World War I and shows how these poems, diaries, novels, and letters reflected the massive changes—in every area, including language itself—brought about by the cataclysm of the Great War.

About Paul Fussell

Paul Fussell (1924-2012) was an American cultural and literary historian and critic. He is the author of over twenty works and winner of the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Paul on November 11, 2024

The Great War of 1914-18 was called “The War to End All Wars” – though it wasn’t, and it didn’t. What it did do, as we all know, is kill 17 million people. It also wounded 20 million more, turned large parts of Europe into a wasteland, and destabilized the continent’s governments in a manner that wo......more

Goodreads review by Nick on July 10, 2013

[Note: I've read this book twice, the first time years ago -- I set the read date as today so it updates on the Facebook wall properly.] In this landmark text from 1975, Fussell (an American scholar and veteran) looks at a selection of writings from certain soldier-authors on the Western Front and ex......more

Goodreads review by Michael on April 26, 2017

I rarely read non-fiction, but this just took my breath away. It's both a wonderful (and achingly sad) introduction to the poets and writers who emerged (or didn't) from World War I, as well as an eye-opening description of how that conflict shaped modern life.......more