All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of WWI.
The book describes the German soldiers’ extreme physical and mental trauma during the war as well as the detachment from civilian life felt by many upon returning home from the war.
It also gives a brutally honest perspective of how WWI completely destroyed Germany and its citizens. Foreshadowing what would lead to another world war in the following 20 or so years.
Remarque’s harshest critics, in turn, were his countrymen, many of whom felt the book denigrated the German war effort, and that Remarque had exaggerated the horrors of war to further his pacifist agenda.
The strongest voices against Remarque came from the emerging Nazi Party and its ideological allies. In 1933, when the Nazis rose to power, All Quiet on the Western Front became one of the first degenerate books to be publicly burnt; in 1930, screenings of the Academy Award-winning film based on the book were met with Nazi-organized protests and mob attacks on both movie theatres and audience members.
Three film adaptations of the book have been made, each of which was been praised for their cinematic success.
This being a very scarce First American printing from 1929 in very good condition
