'Marvellously stimulating overview of ‘literary’ trench literature which has been criticised too often, for its military inaccuracies, by ‘pure military history’ people' (Paddy Griffith, Tactics of the Western Front).
Concur. But as a combat veteran Paul Fussell’s view carried great weight with his readership. His book dovetailed perfectly into the concept that the Great War was an amorphous era almost outside of history and not subject to objective analysis. It’s difficult to overcome that idea.
Fussell's thesis is complete nonsense that doesn't survive even a nodding acquaintance with the subject but as you say influential, although I think less now than formerly.
Concur. I recommend your books frequently when discussing #WW1 for factual analyses of the war. As a matter of fact, I just did a few days ago here in bluesky. But it’s hard to overcome the societal echo of memory from that war.
There are people listening. I started out as a lions and donkeys believer many years ago. But your work, and that of other historians, changed the way I see The First World War.
Comments