World War I (1914-1918)
The more you read about the First World War, the more you realize that the centuries meet there. The career of nation-states, the legacies of imperialism, the entanglement of colonialism, the pace of technological development, the gamemanship of ways of doing battle dating back to the Roman Empire, and the irresistable rise of 20th Century powers all collide in a four-year war.
Here I stock a mix of traditional histories, fiction, and other ways of telling the story that echoes into our present day.
Johnny Got His Gun
Johnny Got His Gun
The Searing Portrayal Of War That Has Stunned And Galvanized Generations Of Readers
An immediate bestseller upon its original publication in 1939, Dalton Trumbo's stark, profoundly troubling masterpiece about the horrors of World War I brilliantly crystallized the uncompromising brutality of war and became the most influential protest novel of the Vietnam era. With a compelling new foreword by fellow award-winning writer E. L. Doctorow, Johnny Got His Gun is an undisputed classic of antiwar literature that's as timely as ever.
"A terrifying book, of an extraordinary emotional intensity."-- The Washington Post
"Powerful. . . an eye-opener." --Michael Moore
"Mr. Trumbo sets this story down almost without pause or punctuation and with a fury amounting to eloquence."-- The New York Times
"A book that can never be forgotten by anyone who reads it."-- Saturday Review