"A century after the guns of August first boomed, World War I has lost none of its power to boggle the mind. . . . Louis Barthas, an enlisted man from southwestern France, managed to reduce the conflict to human scale with a pen and 19 notebooks. . . . With Edward M. Strauss’s translation of Poilu, English-language readers now ... Read morehave access to a classic account of the war, a day-to-day chronicle of life in the trenches and a richly detailed answer to the seemingly unanswerable question: What was it like?"—William Grimes, New York Times "Barthas was an ordinary working man, a barrel maker of socialist inclinations, and there was nothing about him to suggest he harbored literary gifts or genius. But his notebooks, assembled under the title Poilu, are among the great works of the war, deserving a place of mention with memoirs like Guy Chapman’s A Passionate Prodigality and Ernst Jünger’s Storm of Steel."—Geoffrey Norman, Wall Street Journal "Nothing ever written provides a more accurate, raw and close-in account of the beastly life of the common soldier. . ."—Marc Wortman, Daily Beast "One wonders why it took so long for an English translation—this is clearly one of the most readable and indispensable accounts of the death of the glory of war."—Nicholas Mancuso, Daily Beast "This translation of the diaries and letters of a French corporal on the Western front in World War I brings the gritty reality of trench warfare to an English-speaking audience in a manner unparalleled even in the best soldier writings from that war. The reader feels and smells and hears the mud, the blood, the fear, the deafening noise of exploding shells, the clatter of machine guns, the cries of the wounded and dying.  Here is the war as the men in the trenches experienced it."—James McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom "An exceptionally vivid memoir of a French soldier's experience of the First World War."—Max Hastings, author of Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War "Louis Barthas, cooper, citizen, cynic and reluctant reservist, is one of the truly authentic voices of the Great War. A classic in France from its first publication, his account of the fighting (and he saw more of it than most) speaks not only for the 'poilu' but for all solders of the conflict."—Hew Strachan, author of The First World War "A revelatory book that brings the French experience of the Great War to life as you read. However much we may think the British and Americans suffered, their agony was shorter and less intense than the tragedy that overwhelmed the French nation in 1914-1918."—Peter Hart, author of The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War "Ah, the notebooks of Louis Barthas! This book has profound historic value. It is also a genuine work of literature."—François Mitterrand, former president of France Show Less