Most Popular Books by Paul Fussell

Winner of the National Book Award, Paul Fussell''s The Great War and Modern Memory was one of the most original and gripping volumes ever written about the First World War. In Wartime, Fussell turns to the Second World War, the conflict he himself fought in, to weave a narrative that is both more intensely personal and more wide-ranging. Fussell examines the immediate impact of the war on common soldiers and civilians; analyzes the euphemisms people needed to deal with unacceptable reality; and, most important, he emphasizes the damage the war did to intellect, discrimination, honesty, individuality, complexity, ambiguity and wit.

Paul Fussell s award-winning landmark study of World War I, originally published in 1975, remains as original and gripping today as ever but now, for the first time, his literary and illuminating account comes in a beautifully illustrated edition. World War I changed a generation, ushered in the modern era, and revolutionized how we see the world. By drawing from a variety of primary sources including personal correspondence, newspapers, and literary works Fussell brings the period alive. Not only does he give us a more profound understanding of what the Great War meant to the people who lived through it, he also analyzes our modern perception of its impact. The wide selection of rare and fascinating images (approximately 160 of them) includes photographs, illustrations, and maps from period books, magazines, newspapers, advertisements, and other publications. Not only do they heighten the impact of Fussell s remarkable critical interpretation, they help us fully grasp the true scope of this aptly named and catastrophic war.

Presents a series of anecdotes that tell the history and meaning of American uniforms, identifying their cultural significance in terms of how uniforms unite and divide people as well as how they vary throughout the world.

This book describes the living-room artifacts, clothing styles, and intellectual proclivities of American classes from top to bottom.

"This is not a book to promote tranquility, and readers in quest of peace of mind should look elsewhere," writes Paul Fussell in the foreword to this original, sharp, tart, and thoroughly engaging work. The celebrated author focuses his lethal wit on habitual euphemizers, artistically pretentious third-rate novelists, sexual puritans, and the "Disneyfiers of life". He moves from the inflammatory title piece on the morality of dropping the bomb on Hiroshima to a hilarious disquisition on the "naturist movement", to essays on the meaning of the Indy 500 race, on George Orwell, and on the shift in men''s chivalric impulses toward their mothers. Fussell''s "frighteningly acute eye for the manners, mores, and cultural tastes of Americans" (The New York Times Book Review) is abundantly evident in this entertaining dissection of the enemies of truth, beauty, and justice

Part biography, part critical appraisal, this book traces the influences that have shaped Amis'' work and lends insight into a man readily characterized, particularly in later years, as a "literary rottweiler." Drawing attention first to Amis'' life, then to his work--his book reviews, gastronomic criticism, poetry, and essays are treated here, as well as his novels--Fussell''s even-handed yet engaging prose reveals the moral sensibilities that have informed, perhaps at times misinformed, Amis'' writing. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Boys’ Crusade is the great historian Paul Fussell’s unflinching and unforgettable account of the American infantryman’s experiences in Europe during World War II. Based in part on the author’s own experiences, it provides a stirring narrative of what the war was actually like, from the point of view of the children—for children they were—who fought it. While dealing definitively with issues of strategy, leadership, context, and tactics, Fussell has an additional purpose: to tear away the veil of feel-good mythology that so often obscures and sanitizes war’s brutal essence. “A chronicle should deal with nothing but the truth,” Fussell writes in his Preface. Accord-ingly, he eschews every kind of sentimentalism, focusing instead on the raw action and human emotion triggered by the intimacy, horror, and intense sorrows of war, and honestly addressing the errors, waste, fear, misery, and resentments that plagued both sides. In the vast literature on World War II, The Boys’ Crusade stands wholly apart. Fussell’s profoundly honest portrayal of these boy soldiers underscores their bravery even as it deepens our awareness of their experiences. This book is both a tribute to their noble service and a valuable lesson for future generations.

A book about the meaning of travel, about how important the topic has been for writers for two and a half centuries, and about how excellent the literature of travel happened to be in England and America in the 1920s and 30s.

In this highly praised autobiographical work, the author of "The Great War" and "Modern Memory" recounts his own experience of combat in World War II and how it became a determining force in his life. "Doing Battle" is at once a summing-up of one man''s life and a profoundly thoughtful portrait of America''s own search for identity in the second half of this century. of photos.

Author focuses on the death of American sensibility and taste and how Americans are timid in relying on their own tastes and instinct.