A war imagined : the First World War and English culture / Samuel Hynes

London : Bodley Head, 1990. First edition. Hardcover. Near fine cloth copy in a good if somewhat edge-nicked and dust-dulled dust wrapper, now mylar-sleeved. Remains particularly well-preserved overall; tight, bright, clean and strong. Physical description: xiv, 514 p., [16] p. of plates: ill.; 24 cm. Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Subjects: War and literature. Social conditions. Social aspects. Public opinion. Intellectual life. World War, 1914-1918 Influence and results. World war, 1914-1918 England Social aspects. War in literature. War in mass media. Genre: Illustrated. Summary: England after World War I was different: the arts, history, sex, society and class were different. The author records the process of that transformation of the imagination, from the war's beginning into post-war England with its disillusionment and social fragmentations. Between the opulent Edwardian years and the 1920s the First World War opens like a gap in time. England after the war was a different place; the arts were different; history was different; sex, society, class were all different. Samuel Hynes examines the process of that transformation. He explores a vast cultural mosaic comprising novels and poetry, music and theatre, journalism, paintings, films, parliamentary debates, public monuments, sartorial fashions, personal diaries and letters. Told in rich detail, this penetrating account shatters much of the received wisdom about the First World War. It shows how English culture adapted itself to the needs of killing, how our stereotypes of the war gradually took shape and how the nations thought and imagination were profoundly and irretrievably changed.