The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth‐century British and American War Literature

The huge and terrible subject of twentieth‐century warfare is ever present in the media these days, ranging from films like Steven Spielberg's version of Michael Morpurgo's War Horse to scholarly works like Antony Beevor's history of the Second World War, both of which are in the news as I write. The companion under review therefore appears at an opportune time. The editors claim, surprisingly but accurately, that it is the “first reference book to deal comprehensively and incisively with the literary and cultural representations of war in twentieth‐century British and US literature and film”. They point out that the recent...