Dec 16, 2011 By: libraryblog
War No More: The Antiwar Impulse in American Literature, 1861-1914, by Cynthia Wachtell. Louisiana State University Press, 2010Long before the twentieth century, the meaning of the battlefield was questioned. Exploring the span of American literature between the Civil War and World War I, Cynthia Wachtell鈥擯rofessor of English, Stern College鈥攔eveals the diverse responses to war, which shifted from patriotism to disillusionment. The writers represented here鈥攁mong them Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, and Stockton--include journals, eyewitness accounts, and stories such as Mark Twain鈥檚 pacifist 鈥淲ar Prayer.鈥 The increasingly gruesome reality, as depicted in these works, culminated in the technology of World War I, where the machine gun replaced the smooth-bore musket, heralding the modern era and replacing forever the romance of combat and the glory of death for one鈥檚 country. Jay Winter, professor of history at Yale University, calls Prof. Wachtell鈥檚 book 鈥渁 path-breaking study.鈥
