Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #728424 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Philip Pullman, THE OBSERVER
The moral power of Fussell's narrative is all the greater for being so unemphatically delivered.

Review
'This is a former warrior's haunting meditation on the terrible, yet often necessary, destructiveness of war. Written with passion and fidelity, The Boys' Crusade is a book that will not leave you after you have put it down. If there is a more powerful personal account of the ground war in Western Europe I have yet to encounter it.' (Donald Miller, author of The Story of World War II )

'No one writes about war with greater authenticity and eloquence than Paul Fussell. The Boys' Crusade is an extraordinarily powerful account that is at once poignant and searing. It is truth-telling of a very high order.' (Rick Atkinson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize )

'A remarkable and timely reminder that those Americans who fought for our freedom were adolescent 'boys' rather than automata in helmets. Fussell's extraordiary book is one of the most honest and powerful accounts of the Second World War I have read.' (Michael Burleigh, author of THE THIRD REICH )

'There will be few more powerful or disturbing books published this year than this examination of the true face of war.' (LITERARY REVIEW )

'This is... a powerful book that leaves the reader thinking not only about the horrors of the second world war but also about the curious relationship of the Americans to the rest of the world, about their boundless generosity and willingness to help others "sort things out", and their equally limitless compulsion to make a bloody mess of things.' (THE SUNDAY TIMES )

'Few writers have done more to deconstruct the heroic myths of western warfare in the 20th century than Paul Fussell... The book is an antidote to the anniversary fever that has attended memories of D-Day 60 years on... His strident rejection of the anniversary version of the US army's role in the conflict is spoken in the articulate voice of one who went through the real thing... moving and often bitter vignettes... both indignant and humane...' (Richard Overy NEW STATESMAN )

'... revelatory... Military romanticists - and they are legion, though they often deny it - will find Fussell's grave and powerful judgments impossible to refute.' (William Boyd TLS )

'There is always a place for debunking notions of glamour and heroism in war, and Fussell brings some fascinating insights.' (Gary Sheffield TLS )

Adam Zamoyski, THE SUNDAY TIMES
A barely contained anger slips out from behind his sardonic prose on every page. And his anger is catching.

Customer Reviews

Charming but lacks balance
The Boys' Crusade tells the story of the American GI in Europe, from his arrival in England in 1944 to the fall of the Reich. The narrative opens with a wonderful insight into life in the UK as an American soldier, which is later contrasted dramatically with the dreadful conditions the same troops faced on the continent after the invasion.

The author portrays in vivid and at times heart-wrenching detail the hardship and privation that were the norm throughout the European campaign - the unpreparedness of `green' troops, friendly-fire incidents, the frequency of self-inflicted wounds, desertion and the fog of war.

As background to his theme of the plight of the US Army boy-soldier he has broadly encapsulated the story of the war in the west in 1944-5. Within the short space he has allocated himself he has focused on four aspects of that multi-faceted campaign: Normandy, The Bulge, Hurtgen Forrest and finally the dreadful discovery of the forced-labour (concentration) camps in the heart of Germany.

In doing so he has largely ignored the other Allies fighting on the western front, aside from a brief, unbalanced and damning indictment of Canadian forces at Falaise - but, surprisingly, that does not particularly detract from the story.

Paul Fussell writes particularly well - this is a book that is hard to put down, not least because clearly, much is written from personal experience.

In light of some of this excellent background, it is a great pity that Fussell has found it necessary to adapt and distort historical fact to fit his theme. There are several examples of this - one of the more glaring is the description of Operation Cobra as a US air attack on the German front lines, rather than the overall operation of which this simply played the opening bars. A justifiable focus is made upon the well known, but nonetheless appalling, short bombing that resulted in friendly-fire casualties at the start of that operation - but little else. Fussell consequently classifies Cobra a disaster.

Cobra was of course an overall battle-plan for the pivotal breakout of the American forces, under Montgomery and Bradley's command, to the south of the Cotentin peninsula in west Normandy. It resulted in a position being created from which the near destruction of Germany's Normandy forces in the Falaise Pocket became possible.

That brief, key point is ignored.

In the round, Cobra is widely recognised as one of the most successful operations of the entire Normandy campaign - history certainly does not judge it a disaster. Fussell needs to work a lot harder if he is to persuade us to the contrary.

In reviewing this book, Adam Zamoyski writes in Britain's The Sunday Times "A barely contained anger slips out from behind his sardonic prose on every page. And his anger is catching."

It is a shame that this anger should be created by some of the myth Fussell promotes here - he could so easily have achieved the same result without any need to distort the story. So much is written with bias and prejudice in this area, this book could rise above that - a little unbiased editing would probably get it there...... the anger might then be justified.

You still have to give it eight out of ten - it's a cracking read.