Abstract

In The Soldiers’ Tale, Samuel Hynes examines English-language journals, memoirs, novels and letters of mainly middle-class men, the literary civilian-soldiers who fought in the two World Wars and in Vietnam. Reviewers often praise the book for its clarity and jargon-free style. It merges autobiography, history and literature to describe and analyse the themes of war: fear, comradeship, courage, cowardice, confusion and the will to survive.