In The Devil's Dictionary Ambrose Bierce defined "war" as "a by-product of the arts of peace." A Civil War veteran, Bierce had absolutely no illusions about "courage," "honor," and "glory" on the battlefield. These stories form one of the great antiwar statements in American literature. Included here are the classic An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Chickamauga, The Mocking Bird, The Coup de Grâce, Parker Anderson, Philosopher, and other stories celebrated for their intensity, startling insight, and mastery of form.
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"He will remain one of our greatest wits, one of our most uncompromising satirists, the perfecter of two or three new genres."—Clifton Fadiman
(Clifton Fadiman )"Bierce''s war stories are. . .arresting, often shocking accounts of the incivilities perpetrated by and on men suddenly confronting their own mortality."—Cathy N. Davidson, author of The Experimental Fictions of Ambrose Bierce
(Cathy N. Davidson )"[These] striking stories center on subject matter virtually unique in fiction: the awareness of imminent violent death. Perhaps borrowing from his experience of being gravely wounded in the Civil War, [Bierce] wrote upward of a dozen stories in which the protagonist knows he is about to die, usually by hanging or firing squad—or, in a variation, recovers consciousness after being pronounced dead."—Dennis Drabelle, Smithsonian
(Dennis Drabelle Smithsonian )
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wars Were Brutal Long Before TV Discovered Them,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Civil War Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce (Paperback)
No matter what it is called, be it the Civil War, the War Between the States or the War of Southern Secession, the time period 1861-65 was one of the most bloody, destructive and emotionally and ideologically charged periods in U.S. history. And no contemporary author had a better grasp of it than Union comabt veteran Ambrose Bierce, whose stories in this short but riveting collection are not dry historical abstractions nor a cold analysis of the decisions of senior leaders, but a graphic record of the everday sweat, endless terror and cruel, surreal absurdity of armed conflict.
From the eerie "Incident at the Owl Creek Bridge" to the gripping "Parker Adderson, Philosopher," Bierce honed the unique literary and expressive skills that served him well as a corrosive and controversial San Francisco newspaper columnist and astonishingly effective writer on horror and the occult. War to "Bitter Bierce" was the purest expression of the basic animal survival instinct; hardened and warped by endless fear, by the power of technological advances in weaponry and the stress and repeated brutality that turned ordinary human beings into ruthless killers--to the point where ideology and the color of the uniform no longer mattered. Bierce's experiences and deep cynicism soon led him to believe that human beings, despite all of their apparent gifts, in reality could do little more than create brutal and meaningless tragedies. "War is a byproduct of the arts of peace," he was reported to have said, but these stories, a product of a bygone era, remain curiously contemporary because they tell us about everyday people--not unlike ourselves despite more than a century of difference--who fought a war, that, in light of the issues it raised and the multiple cultural forces it unleashed or redirected, has never really ended.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent,
By Cosmoetica "cosmoeticadotcom" (New York, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Civil War Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce (Paperback)
Today, if known at all, Ambrose Bierce is recalled as that guy who wrote that funny book The Devil's Dictionary. He was seen, and still is seen, as a sort of poor man's Mark Twain. This is quite unfair, as he was a marvelous writer in his own right, although not with the depth nor wit that Twain possessed. Part of the problem is that his personal life, strong opinions, and bitter biases (he loathed Oscar Wilde, for example), have led to his marginalization. Yet, Bierce was a master of the short story form- every bit the equal or superior of more lauded contemporaries like Guy de Maupassant, or O. Henry. Mostly, it is in the horror or thriller vein that his tales fall, but his best work, in my opinion, can be found in his marvelous tales of the Civil War....These are simply riveting tales, far more modern than his contemporaries work, and most of this is due to Bierce's journalistic background (he worked for William Randolph Hearst at the San Francisco Examiner). About the only thing that keeps the tales from a full claim on modernity is Bierce's penchant for twist endings, rather than the more naturalistic zero endings that Anton Chekhov pioneered, and others ran with. Still, the description that Bierce paints- of lives, deaths, moments, and battles, are rich, horrific, and vivid. His characters are usually merely servants to the overall narrative- another `throwback' trait of pre-modern fiction, but ask yourself- is there a character in all of Donald Barthelme's or Rick Moody's writing that is not cardboard? Bierce was simply not attempting great character portraits, in general, so to hold him up to that standard is not tenable. By every other measure, though, his tales could have been penned by a modern writer covering Vietnam or the two Iraq wars....The stories are first rate, and mustr reading fore anyone enamored of short stories, or those just interested in American history, or the Civil War. As for the man himself? In 1913, after a series of personal setbacks- deaths of sons and a divorce, he set out for Mexico to cover Pancho Villa and the Mexican Revolution. His last written words were: `Goodbye, if you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags, please know that I think it a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico- ah, that is euthanasia!' It is fitting that such an enigmatic man and writer would leave such an epitaph, but that is not his legacy. These great stories are- read, learn, but most of all enjoy.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great condition Fast professionaql packing AAAAAAA++++,
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This review is from: The Civil War Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce (Paperback)
Great book of Bierce's Civil War short stories. Relevant reading in this new age of war
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