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.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
For most, World War II is nothing but a chapter in history--for most Americans, a rosy and happy one. But Paul Fussell, a novelist and WWII veteran, reminds us that only those who've experienced it can truly understand that war is hell. He writes with bite and humor of the horrors and inequalities of the so-called "Good War," which he says "for the United States, [was] an unintended form of eugenics, clearing the population of the dumbest, the least skilled, the least promising of all Americans." Not exactly the thoughts of a sentimentalist, but the notion that war is horrible should be eternally reinforced, and Fussell does so with a fury and skill few writers can muster.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
War as a crucible of character: that is the theme of this searching, courageous memoir from Fussell, a National Book Award winner for The Great War and Modern Memory. Fussell, who grew up in the "highly privileged suburb" of Pasadena, Calif., was called to active duty in May 1943. Sent later that year to Europe as a 19-year-old Army infantry officer, he engaged in combat numerous times and, in March 1945, suffered shrapnel wounds in southeastern France. War began to change Fussell when, days after his arrival, he saw his first bodies: "My boyish illusions, largely intact to that moment of awakening, fell away all at once, and suddenly I knew that I was not and would never be in a world that was reasonable or just." When Fussell returned home after the war, he resolved "that I was finished with coercion and murder forever." That decision led him to academia, where he could enjoy a relatively unfettered life and independence of mind. Fussell traces the effects of war on his later activities, covering his personal life, his teaching and his writing. Experiences of a half century ago continue to haunt the author: "sometimes," he confesses, "I waste time devising wild schemes of revenge against the Germans." The primary focus here, however, is on those experiences themselves, presented in unflinching prose as Fussell offers a moving testimony to the indelible place of WWII in the life not only of one man, but of a generation. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Fussell's work is searingly honest and forthright. He treats war as the unrelieved hell it is, not from the position of those who favor war, or those who are opposed to it, but from those who are on the ground doing the fighting and the dying.And more than this, his book also addresses the corrosive influences of money, advertising, and authoritarianism that has replaced critical thought and learning in this country. We have become the Faustian culture that we were warned about half a century ago---the culture that replaces all its values of honesty, integrity, achievement, learning, for material gain that eats away at the foundations of culture. And yet we will survive; for like the lonely priests who in the year 1100 kept the ancient world alive in remote places like Ireland and Spain, thinkers and writers like Fussell are preserving culture and ideals against the onslaught of modern day Visigoths who have decamped in the courtyard. A singular achievement that is moving and provocative. Only ninnies at the Kirkus Review would be bothered by such blatant honesty.
25 of 28 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I'm not a literary person, I can't spell well, and I am not an infantryman. I was in the Army during the Viet Nam war, and I have a broad range on interests. I didn't choose this book, it was a gift. But it is one of the most moving books I have ever read.
Fussell is a critic, and he indirectly claims that his experiences in WWII were "the making of a skeptic" - and maybe it was. It is fantastic to see him skewer all forms of phoneyness and cover-up - including his own. You also get the impression that he is an uncompromising and very interesting character - but not fun or easy to get along with.
A real career combat infantryman I know had glanced at the book and claimed that Fussell just didn't understand Sherman's quote, "War is hell" and whined too much. I agreed that there was some truth to the criticism, but I got him to read the whole thing. His opinion changed dramatically for the better.
O.K., it is pretty much negative, but you can see underneath all that, he loves life, infantrymen, and people who try their very best and have honor. One of the few heros in the book is Gen. Eisenhower - but he is critical of President Eisenhower. It's a complex book, and he's a complex man. Get a glimpse inside him by reading this book.
21 of 24 people found the following review helpful
By Ralph Peters
Format:Paperback
Doing Battle is an excellent book for these troubling times. Though obviously a prickly sort, Fussell his kept his critical faculties intact and properly skewers ineptitude, careerists, rationalizers, martinets, and soft-headedness. The center-piece of this autobiography is Fussell's experience as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army in France and Germany in WWII. Fussell takes aim at the military - recounting the caprices and cruel arbitrariness of his own service with a scalpel-like pen.
Fussell also has little use for the beer-fueled sports culture that now dominates the American cultural landscape. He is first and foremost a defender of elitism - not an elitism based on social or economic class, but based on what and how one thinks and comports oneself in doing the tasks of daily life. Doing Battle is about honor and integrity, with Fussell having been lucky enough, or bright enough, to have had a series of teaching jobs that allowed his convictions and sense of honor and self to survive largely intact.
Fussell writes beautifully and movingly. He also lays himself bare in Doing Battle. It is a rare book in that it is scholarly as well as a good, quick read. The influence of Mencken is clearly felt. You put the book down at the end regretfully. You then begin the processs of recommending it to your special friends - the ones that you think will "understand."
I recommend the book highly.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Required reading for those considering service
If only recruiters and ROTC profs handed every young person in their charge a copy of this book... Fussell lived through the real thing, and spent the remainder of his very... Read more
Published 9 days ago by David Burch
5.0 out of 5 stars
Grave Sympathies, Mr. Jones
Any book by Paul Fussell will move you away from the swallowed propaganda back to healthy humanism in action. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Pit O'Maley
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best of its class
This has correctly been judged the best account of an infantry platoon leader's experiences in World War 2. The writing is agile and apt. Read more
Published 5 months ago by flakhappy
2.0 out of 5 stars
de mortuis nil nisi malum
Recently deceased Fussell is someone you would not want on your department faculty or at an academic cocktail party. Read more
Published 11 months ago by N. Ravitch
4.0 out of 5 stars
An exceedingly literate denounciation of the army and war
This is Fussell's life memoir rather than one focused solely on war-time experiences but his time in the army had a marked impact on everything that came after and the exploration... Read more
Published on February 18, 2010 by John E. Larsen
1.0 out of 5 stars
Piece of Trash
This book "Doing Battle , The Making of a Skeptic" is really bad. Don't waste your money or your time. Borrow it from the library if you want to read it. Read more
Published on January 9, 2010 by Anonymous
5.0 out of 5 stars
Self-effacing, funny & profound
I read DOING BATTLE over a year ago while doing research for a WWII era biography I was writing. I was looking for memoirs of wartime that would reflect the times. Read more
Published on December 9, 2008 by Timothy J. Bazzett
1.0 out of 5 stars
Doing Battle: The Making of a Skeptic
Unless you enjoy seeing the US Army trashed save your money. Very twisted view of the WWII Army and those belonging to it. Read more
Published on October 3, 2007 by J. Kindred
5.0 out of 5 stars
Skeptic? Iconoclast? Anarchist? Unhappy.
"Doing Battle: The Making Of A Skeptic" By Paul Fussell
Little Brown And Company, Boston. 1996. Read more
Little Brown And Company, Boston. 1996. Read more
Published on November 13, 2006 by John P. Rooney
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thank you Paul
His name must rhyme with tussle else the students he had at Connecticut College were not very good at poetry. Read more
Published on December 25, 2003 by W. Jamison
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