Back to the Front: An Accidental Historian Walks the Trenches of World War I

O'Shea, Stephen

ISBN 10: 1550544721 / ISBN 13: 9781550544725

Published by Douglas & McIntyre, Limited, Vancouver, 1996

About this Item

A clean, unmarked copy, inscribed by the author on the title page.

Seller Inventory # 106676

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Back to the Front: An Accidental Historian Walks the Trenches of World War I
• Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre, Limited, Vancouver
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1550544721
• ISBN 13: 9781550544725
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

World War I has left as deep a scar on the imaginative landscape of our century as it

has on the land where it was fought. Nowhere is that more evident than on the

Western Front, a narrow swath of land in which millions of lives were lost. Believing

that "history is too important to be left to the professionals," journalist Stephen

O'Shea set out to walk the 450 miles through no-man's-land to discover for his generation

the meaning of the war. As his walk progresses, O'Shea recreates the shocking battles of the Western Front, and offers an impassioned perspective on the war, the

state of the land, and the cultivation of memory. An evocative fusion of past and present, BACKT TO THE FRONT will resonate, for all who read it, as few other books on war ever have.

About the Author

Toronto-born author and journalist Stephen O'Shea moved to France in the early 1980s. There, he took up journalism, shortly after completing postgraduate degrees in politics at the Université de Paris 1 (Pantheon-Sorbonne) and the prestigious Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris.

In 1989, Elle magazine relocated O'Shea to New York to be a senior features editor of their American edition. In 1993, he returned to Paris, where he worked as Variety's film critic, and published articles on French culture and politics for American, British, French, and Canadian magazines, including The Observer, The Times of London, Harper's Bazaar, Interview, Allure, and Mother Jones.

To research The Perfect Heresy, O'Shea moved to Perpignan in southern France in 1997, where he spent two years immersing himself in Cathar lore. In addition to The Perfect Heresy, O'Shea is also the author of the widely acclaimed Back to the Front (Walker & Company, 1997), a hiker's meditation on the trenches of World War I.

Stephen O'Shea currently lives with his wife, Jill Pearlman, and two daughters in Providence, Rhode Island.