"The Soldiers' Tale" is the story of modern wars as told by the men who
fought them. Samuel Hynes examines the journals, memoirs, and letters of
men who fought in the two world wars and Vietnam, and also the personal
records from the wars fought against the weak and helpless in
concentration camps, prisoner-of-war camps, and bombed cities.
Interweaving the author's own reflections on war with brilliantly chosen
passages from soldiers' accounts, " The Soldiers' Tale" merges
autobiography, history, and literature to describe what war is really
like-a tale of fear, comradeship, courage, cowardice, confusion, and the
persistent will to survive.