Thank God for the Atom Bomb and Other Essays - Hardcover

Fussell, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671638661 ISBN 13: 9780671638665

Publisher: Summit Books, 1988

Synopsis

Essays discuss nuclear war, George Orwell, tourism, chivalry, nudism, the Indy 500 race, Yugoslavia, modernism, and modern American manners

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

A conservative cultural critic with a passion for nude beaches and the Indy 500 auto race, Fussell (The Great War and Modern Memory) explores some of his pet topics in this miscellany of essays and articles. The title piece, a defense of Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, generated lively controversy when it first appeared in the New Republic; a spirited exchange from that journal is included here. Elsewhere, Fussell hails George Orwell's essays as a refreshing counterweight to today's "theory-ridden" criticism. Mulling the difference between tourists and travelers, he offers disarming observations on travel writers Paul Theroux and John Krich. One piece explores how patriotic fervor thrust Carl Sandburg's propaganda tracts into the literary limelight. Fussell has quirky, interesting things to say about gun control, war poetry, chivalry and modernism as an offshoot of the "melodrama of the French Revolution."
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Most of these 14 essayson topics ranging from Hiroshima to the Indy 500originally appeared in the New Republic , Sewanee Review , and other periodicals. One essay praises George Orwell for virtues that Fussell himself has cultivated: an accessible style, a lively interest in the social uses of language, and "a power of facing unpleasant facts." Fussell is even keener on exposing the euphemisms and illusions of others. His most valuable pieces deal with the horrors of modern warfare and its literaturesomewhat extending and generalizing his powerful The Great War and Modern Memory (1975). Libraries with well-educated browsers would find this worthyif not mandatorywhile those covering the two World Wars would find it worthier still. Donald Ray, Manhattanville Coll. Lib., Purchase, N.Y.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Summit Books
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0671638661
• ISBN 13: 9780671638665
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 298