American Writers and World War I

Recent studies have focused on the social groups which wrote about the war in America, such as non-combatants, women, African Americans, and the political left. This study focuses, instead, on the ways war writing was shaped by personal and professional variables which unfolded at the level of the individual. World War I texts, this volume contends, are usually more nuanced in their reactions to the war than scholars recognise. Moreover, when a career-wide approach is taken, it emerges that most authors’ representations of the war were subject to change and revision, as they developed as people and artists, and as the contexts of authorship–such as editing, marketing, and Hollywood-impinged on their works.