About the Author

Samuel Hynes is Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature as Princeton University. Together with his earlier works- The Edwardian Turn of Mind and The Auden Generation- A War Imagined forms an important continuous study of the relationship between literature, the arts and th4e events of history during the first four decades of the twentieth century.

Reviews

"It is cultural history of a sweeping order... which can be savoured for its profusion of exhibits as well as for its ambitious thesis... A teeming book full of learning and humanity." -- C. J. Fox Independent "Makes tremendous sense... The wholly coherent effect of Hynes's study is all the more notable for the disintegrated nature of his material... A greatly rewarding study of how culture was dumbfounded." -- Mick Imlah The Times Literary Supplement

This is an interesting, moving excursion in sociopolitical history. In some senses, Hynes (literature, Princeton), who has published widely on literary subjects (e.g., The Auden Generation: Literature and Politics in England in the 1930s , LJ 2/15/77), does for the Great War what Robert Graves and Alan Hodge do for the interwar period in The Long Week-End (1941). He does a better job of capturing the mood and changing nature of English culture, however, and that is saying a great deal. As this book makes manifest, World War I was a social watershed which saw England move from one way of life and values to another. Hynes makes especially good use of sources, drawing not only on standard texts and memoirs but delving into the revealing insights offered by films, music, art, etc. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the evolution of 20th-century British society.-- James A. Casada, Winthrop Coll., Rock Hill, S.C.