Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War - Hardcover

Fussell, Paul; Fussell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195037979 ISBN 13: 9780195037975

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1989

Synopsis

The Second World War has been romanticized almost beyond recognition by 'the sentimental, the loony patriotic, the ignorant, and the bloodthirsty.' In this readable and penetrating study, Paul Fussell goes behind the familiar diplomacy and heroics of history to examine the blunders, petty tyrannies, inconveniences, and deprivations that are many British and American people's memory of the War. There are lively sections on the role of drinking, tobacco, and sex in the war and on the home front; on propaganda; about writers and magazines who recorded the war or who attempted to keep aloft literary standards in a difficult time; on wartime slang and graphic recollections of the nightmare of combat.

Written with a keen intelligence and deep emotion, Wartime is a worthy companion to Fussell's The Great War And Modern Memory , which won an American National Book Award and the National Critics Circle prize.

About this title

Review

`Paul Fussell has written the best book I know of about World War I. Now he has written the best book I know of about the Second World War. No novel I've read surpasses its depiction of the awful human cost to all sides of modern warfare. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it's unforgettable.' Joseph Heller

`Professor Fussell has written a riveting book. Many have recently appeared to cash in on the half-century of Chamberlain's reluctant declaration, but I would say that, to all who lived through that war, and to those generations who wonder what the fuss was about, this one is close to obligatory reading.' Anthony Burgess, Observer

'memorable portrait of the last war' Independent

'just as clever, witty, painful, disturbing ... as the first' John Grigg, The Times

'Fussell's book is wide-ranging in its concerns and thoroughly researched.' Sunday Correspondent

'memorable and distinctive ... Wartimeis no friendly journey down memory lane. It forces you to think, and at the end forces you to feel.' Asa Briggs, Sunday Times

'characteristically wide-ranging ... Fussell's point is that war is barbaric, and no amount of high ideals and fustian rhetoric can disguise that central fact ... a lively, shocking and grimly funny book.' The Listener

'Fussell's book is wide-ranging in its concerns and thoroughly researched. There is much that is vivid and to the point' Alan Ross, Sunday Correspondent

'Professor Fussell has written a riveting book ... I would say that, to all who lived through that war, and to those generations who wonder what all the fuss was about, this one is close to obligatory reading.' Anthony Burgess, Observer

'unlike most military histories and documentaries, it does not glorify generals and, unlike flag-waving propaganda works about war, it leaves an anti-war aftertaste' Herbert Mitgang, International Herald Tribune

Synopsis

The Second World War has been romanticized almost beyond recognition by "the sentimental, the loony patriotic, the ignorant, and the bloodthirsty". In this study, Paul Fussell goes behind the familiar diplomacy and heroics of history to examine the blunders, petty tyrannies, inconveniences, and deprivations that are many British and American people's memory of the War. There are lively sections on the role of drinking, tobacco, and sex in the war and on the home front; on propaganda; about writers and magazines who recorded the war or who attempted to keep aloft literary standards in a difficult time; on wartime slang and graphic recollections of the nightmare of combat. It is a companion to Fussell's "The Great War And Modern Memory", which won an American National Book Award and the National Critics Circle prize.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0195037979
• ISBN 13: 9780195037975
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 350