The Soldiers' Tale: Bearing Witness to Modern War

"The Soldiers' Tale" is the story of modern wars as told by the men who fought them. Samuel Hynes examines the journals, memoirs, and letters of men who fought in the two world wars and Vietnam, and also the personal records from the wars fought against the weak and helpless in concentration camps, prisoner-of-war camps, and bombed cities. Interweaving the author's own reflections on war with brilliantly chosen passages from soldiers' accounts, " The Soldiers' Tale" merges autobiography, history, and literature to describe what war is really like-a tale of fear, comradeship, courage, cowardice, confusion, and the persistent will to survive.