Reviews for The literature of war

The average rating for The literature of war based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-03-18 00:00:00 Jeffrey Garcia This is probably one of the most densely packed books I've ever read. It's an academic specialist book, so you've been warned. On many occasions I've had to re-read sections to get to grips with what he's saying. It's an attempt to shed light on cultural approaches to war by analysing the language used in poetry, prose, journalism, memoirs, and so on, using various contemporary literary, linguistic and cultural theories. He is pretty convincing, when talking about the American Civil War, in presenting the thesis that discourse and violence (epitomised by war) are opposites, and that the existence of war acts as a massive constraint on language itself. It has a focus on the United States, so the applicability of its conclusions to other cultures may be questioned. But it has forced me to be more careful in the choice of my words in other contexts, because he points up the ways in which unthoughtful expression can distort what we really mean without us realising it. Note that at the start of this paragraph I said 'United States' not the more casual 'American' - an example of shorthand that can lead to trouble.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-01-16 00:00:00 George Hutchcraft My doctoral supervisor recommended this to me not for its subject matter, but for the clarity of its prose - medicine for my prolixity and unwieldy sentences and tendency to pepper everything with semicolons. The language is excellent, but the subject itself, although not my field, of research, is handled just as well.