Customer Reviews

Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

World War II was defended, at the time, as a high minded war. In recent years, historians have viewed the war in a monolithic way -- the Good War, the Crusade, the most legitimate use of American power...

Fussell corrects this view by adding nuance, by capturing the background. His essays on the culture of wartime range from music to literature, radio to army camp life, scatological humor to the horrors of battle. The result is a rare and unusual history, which captures some of the variability of this large war.

The book reads well. Most chapters can be read as stand alone essays, but read as a whole the book builds a layered depiction of the back lines, the home front, and the fighting man.

The last chapter horrifies and moves the reader. Fussell has a goal of helping to bring Americans to a greater maturity about behavior during war, and the costs of battle. It is clear that America is immature about battle and death -- witness the end of the Gulf War -- and that this has a cost in how we pursue foreign policy.

Great book, great read, excellent corrective to the outsized heroic histories of the war.

Contrary to some of the recent reviews, I consider Fussell's work the best I have read on WWII. I've read some of Stephen Amborse's works and enjoyed them as well, but Fussell provides a much needed critical, even cynical, antidote to Ambrose's telling of the story. Fussell definitely departs from the mainstream representation the war and that is immensely refreshing.

Fussell provides detailed insight into the daily lives of the average soldier, the mundane and the horrific. He tells of many errors (in fact in his view the whole war should be viewed as a series of errors) such as shooting down friendly planes and bombimg of friendly troops. Fussell discloses the tremendous amount of drinking that went on, the physical deprivations, and the cruelty of inept martinets that were officers. To me, the war was a just one, but that's no reason to remain ignorant of just how horrible the war was.

This book is not a telling of whole story of WWII and isn't meant to be, but it's an absolutely necessary complement to the standard histories.

I want to disagree with the three previous reviews, to defend Fussell's project. One reviewer seems to be confusing "Wartime" with Fussell's memoir "Doing Battle." The former is not intended as a memoir but as an alternate history--an alternative to the kind of history represented by a book recommended by another of the reviewers, i.e.,, Stephen Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers." If Ambrose's book can be seen as a companion to Spielberg's romantic (and therefore disappointing) "Saving Private Ryan," then "Wartime" is parallel to--in fact is clearly inspired by--Heller's satirical "Catch-22." What Fussell and Heller have in common is that they both reject absolutely the work of the apologists of war--a category into which all three of these reviewers probably fit. What the reviewer who labels Fussell's book "unadulterated junk" seems to object to most is that Fussell, by training a literary critic, should have the presumption to write HISTORY. The reviewer suggests that, instead of reading Fussell, one should read anti-war novels, including Heller's "Catch-22." Here's what Heller had to say about Fussell's book: "No novel I have read surpasses its depiction of the awful human costs to all sides of modern warfare. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it is unforgettable" (jacket blurb). What these reviewers find unFORGIVEable is that Mr. Fussell has, in writing this book, stepped outside the established conventions of historiography--that is why a book that to Heller and to me (another of those blasted literary types--YUCK!) is eminently readable appears to them "confused." They haven't yet learned how to read the sort of history Fussell is writing. It is THEY who are confused, not Fussell. I suspect these reviewers would prefer the sort of history written by Kurt Vonnegut's Bertram Copeland Rumfoord. And Rumfoord's attitude toward Billy Pilgrim, whose very existence problematizes Rumfoord's "official" history of the bombing of Dresden, rather nicely parallels that of these three reviewers toward Fussell: "It was difficult for Rumfoord to take Billy seriously, since Rumfoord had so long considered Billy a repulsive non-person who would be better off dead. Now, with Billy speaking clearly and to the point, Rumfoord's ears wanted to treat the words as a foreign language that was not worth learning" ("Slaughterhouse Five"). The language Fussell is speaking is well worth learning. These reviewers should take a lesson.

Readers of this book tend to either love it or hate it. I think this is an enourmously valuable book when taken for what's intended to convey. This book describes the cultural gestalt of the American people during the second world war and the experience of the common soldier. When held to the standard of historical research of the sort William L. Shirer produced in his history of the Third Reich, it natuarally falls short. (Althought I strongly disagree with the critique of Fussells scholarship offered in other reviews.) The book is not a strict history, but a social commentary and a view from a a man who fought in the war.

Dr. Fussell served during WWII and is personally closer to the material than his award winning work in "The Great War and Modern Memory." What is lost in his capacity for objectivity is more than compensated for in his empathy, his insight and his common touch with the experience of the young men who fought in the war. Who could blame a man who fought in a war for being critical of aspects of it? Why should we expect him to extole its virtues?

Is it really such heresy to state that people had doubts about fighting the second world war? Does it really show disrespect to acknowledge that the generation who fought the second world war thought about what the war meant? If anything, bringing this to light shows that people back then weren't too different from ourselves. It shows that as a society we have known the same anxieties and resevations about war that we do today and survived.

We are rapidly loosing the generation of men who fought WWII, and with them an important group of people who participated in the shaping of the modern world. This book communicates one mans educated and eloquently stated perspective on the defining conflict of the last hundred years. We could use more books like this, and I'm grateful that we have this one.

I want to disagree with the three previous reviews, to defend Fussell's vision. One reviewer seems to be confusing "Wartime" with Fussell's memoir "Doing Battle." The former is not intended as a memoir but as an alternate history--an alternative to the kind of history represented by a book recommended by another of the reviewers, i.e.,, Stephen Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers." If Ambrose's book can be seen as a companion to Spielberg's romantic (and therefore disappointing) "Saving Private Ryan," then "Wartime" is parallel to--in fact is clearly inspired by--Heller's satirical "Catch-22." What Fussell and Heller have in common is that they both reject absolutely the work of the apologists of war--a category into which all three of these reviewers probably fit. What the reviewer who labels Fussell's book "unadulterated junk" seems to object to most is that Fussell, by training a literary critic, should have the presumption to write HISTORY. The reviewer suggests that, instead of reading Fussell, one should read anti-war novels, including Heller's "Catch-22." Here's what Heller had to say about Fussell's book: "No novel I have read surpasses its depiction of the awful human costs to all sides of modern warfare. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it is unforgettable." What these reviewers find unFORGIVEable is that Mr. Fussell has, in writing this book, stepped outside the established conventions of historiography--that is why a book that to Heller and to me (another of those blasted literary types--YUCK!) is eminently readable appears to them "confused." They haven't yet learned how to read the sort of history Fussell is writing. THEY are confused, not Fussell. I suspect these reviewers would prefer the sort of history written by Kurt Vonnegut's Bertram Copeland Rumfoord. And Rumfoord's attitude toward Billy Pilgrim, whose very existence problematizes Rumfoord's "official" history of the bombing of Dresden, rather nicely parallels that of these three reviewers toward Fussell: "It was difficult for Rumfoord to take Billy seriously, since Rumfoord had so long considered Billy a repulsive non-person who would be better off dead. Now, with Billy speaking clearly and to the point, Rumfoord's ears wanted to treat the words as a foreign language that was not worth learning" ("Slaughterhouse Five", pp. 191-92). The language Fussell is speaking is well worth learning. These reviewers should take a lesson.

I first learned of Paul Fussell when I read his book entitled "Class: A Guide through the American Status System." It was there that I first encountered his sardonic wit and his superb eye for the ironic and absurd. He brings the same to Wartime, but in a more personal way, since it is his own service as an infantry officer in Europe in WWII that informs his perceptions. Throughout the book Fussell seeks to undermine what he calls the "high-mindedness" of WWII, or the "rationalizations and euphemisms people needed to deal with an unacceptable actuality from 1939 to 1945."

WWII for more than six decades has been monolithic in the popular American mind, and considered by most to be the "Good War." Almost everyone has a male relative that "fought" in WWII. The truth is, however, that among the sixteen million men in uniform, fewer than one in ten ever saw direct combat. The other ninety percent had a perception of combat not unlike the average woman, child or old man back in the States. This is dealt with by Fussell in the last chapter, entitled "The Real War Will Never Get in the Books," which forms an appropriate climax to Wartime.

It is in this final chapter that Fussell lets the reader in on an uncomfortable little secret about the Good War: for the men at the "sharp end" who were doing the killing and the dying, it was not a struggle for the triumph of democracy over fascism or to stop this or that evil regime or for any other high abstracted ideal. Instead, it was just a grim struggle for survival, without any greater transcendent meaning, and neither the rear-echelon soldier within earshot of the fighting nor the folks back home had any clue what was actually going on. Read Eugene Sledge's With the Old Breed to learn more about this theme.

I highly recommend Wartime to anyone interested in delving below the surface of the traditional historiography of WWII. And even if you don't appreciate Fussell's main themes, you will still find bibliographical references to a wealth of different combatants' firsthand accounts.

Paul Fussell's brilliant, earthy account of the lives of everyday soldiers in WWII is vastly superior to the shallow pap of Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation, or the pretentious PBS documentary series, The War.

My highest recommendation!

This book was recommended by a colleague and I found it quite fascinating. Perhaps even more so as we have embarked on a "war on terrorism" and nuclear strategies are being developed specific to certain countries forming the "axis of evil."

It appears that most reviewers found the book worthwhile while a few found little in it of redeeming value. After reading Ambrose, this was certainly a departure. However, overall I found it an interesting perspective and one that is rarely heard.

An occasional chapter is tedious, especially that on the London literary scene in the 40s. But Fussell through that information tries to show how some tried to maintain some semblance of normalcy during a period of great privation.

Overall, I would recommend this book for anyone interested in a different perspective on WWII. It was, in some ways, similar to certain civil war histories that focus more on the travails of the soldiers than the strategists.

Cynical, skeptical, and above all ironic, WARTIME explores -- from a social, cultural, literary, and psychological point of view -- what one might call the underbelly of World War II, that wide world beneath the myths of the "good war," the "greatest generation," and "band of brothers." Fussell, who gave World War I similar treatment in THE GREAT WAR AND MODERN MEMORY, strives not so much to malign as to understand, to put events in perspective, to seek the truth through all the propaganda and distortion and cant and outright lies, to find the reality of the war.

One need not agree with all of Fussell's arguments nor share his cynicism to enjoy the book. Indeed, it's difficult to agree with such an overwrought description as "Japanese soldiers were being massacred on New Guinea and Guadalcanal." Understanding and truth-seeking require making distinctions, and there's nothing shameful in finding American troops -- despite the atrocities which they committed and which do deserve more attention -- more humane on the whole than their Japanese counterparts.

Still, WARTIME is a useful corrective to popular (and bromidic) accounts of the war that often imply that everyone marched off to war willingly and gleefully, that everyone was united in support of the war and the way it was waged, that everyone high-mindedly fought for freedom. Yes, there were heroism, courage, and nobility, but there were also nastiness, brutishness, cruelty, and dishonesty. By exposing the latter, Fussell says, we elevate the former. He concludes the book with the statement Eisenhower prepared in case the D-Day invasion failed. In it, the general takes full responsibility for the failure, a gesture Fussell calls "a bright signal in a dark time" -- a gesture that means nothing if we believe all the many millions of men in uniform would have done the same thing.

This hard-boiled, depressing book shows the realities of combat from World War II. In a series of chapters and essays, Author Paul Fussell minces few words and images. Readers see the reality of combat through the eyes of front-line soldiers; this was far less a glorious effort to end tyranny than an ugly, brutal struggle for survival. No wonder so many soldiers embraced the questionable comforts of alcohol, plus good chow, warm socks, and getting out unscathed. Of course, the desire not to let your comrades down inspired (or pulled) many beyond their likely endurance. As these pages show, few survivors were left un-affected, nor were most of them able to simply leave their disturbing memories on the battlefield.

My father (air corps) described disliking precision troop-support bombing, and his brother cursed MacArthur's name a half-century later. Neither felt wistful about their war service, yet both felt the struggle against fascism necessary. Many other veterans never speak (or spoke) of their experiences, and tv viewers saw tearful vets visiting comrade graves in Normandy during commemorations of D-Day. This book is rough, disturbing, and probably necessary; many say the same thing about that horrid conflict.