Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1942-12-24
A GOOD BOOK TO READ

MEN AT WAR: The Best War Stor-
les of All Time. Edited with an
Introduction by Ernest Hemingway.
Based on a Plan by William Koz-
lenko. 1,O72 PIP. New York: Crown
Publishers. $500.
(Reviewed by James M. AycOck,
President of the Debate Club OF
Washington College, ChestertOwn,
Hemingway has collected eighty
two of the greatest war stories OF all
time-short stories, excerpts from
novels, memoirs or history, that show
fighting men of all ages engaged IN
all of the various types of warfare.
The result is almost eleven hundred
pages of moving, exciting, thrilling
reading that will absorb the interest
of everyone.
Mr.. Hemingway's purpose in this
compilation was simple and direct.
He states in his Introduction: This
book will not tell you how to die. This
book will tell you, though, how all
men from the earliest times we know
have fought and died. So when you
have read it you will know that there
are no worse things to be gone
through than men have been through
before" The reader is shown in the
best possible way just what war is,
how wars are won and lost, the great
things and the little things, the cour-
age and the pity of men and women
at war. The authors include:
Tolstoy, 7. E. Lawrence, Stephen
Crane, Victor Hugo, Charles Oman,
Winston Churchill, James Hilton, Col.
John w. Tomason, William Faulkner,
Kipling, C. S. Forester, Alexander
Woollcott, Marquis James, Heming-
way and many others.
The author has brought together
stories of brave men facing immedi-
ate and violent death, starting with
David Staying Goliath and Joshua's
conquest of Jerico. The long series
of narratives reaches it's conclusion
with excellent and truthful stories of
Pearl Harbor and Midway.
Besides the two excerpts from the
Bible already noted, Hemingway
gives representation to the ancients
by Virgil, Xenophon, julius Caesar
and Livy. There is de Joinville's
narrative of the crusade of Saint
Louis, Pedro Menendez de Aviles's
account of the massacre at Mantanzas
Inlet, Prescott's death of Montezuma
and the last battle of King Arthur by
Sir Thomas Mallory.
American history is well represent
ed. Selections are included from
Drums Along the Mohawk, by Ed
monds; description of Shiloh and the
Battle of Atlanta, by Lewis; the fight
between the Merrimac and the Mon
itor, by Mary Johnston; the descrip-
ton of John Brown at Harper's Fer
ny, by Ehrlieh; Admiral Dewey's ac-
count of the battle of Manila Bay;
two Civil War fictions, by Captain
John w. Thomson; and group of
vivid World War pictures by Colonel
Theodore Roosevelt, Laurence Stall
ings, Thomas M. Johnson, Fletcher
Pratt, and Frazier Hunt. Heming
way includes the Battle of Caporetto,
from his "a Farewell To Arms, and
the fight on the hilltop, from "For
Whom The Bell Tolls"
In his introduction, the author
states that during the last war "there
was no good true war book during the
entire four years of the war" Prose
writer's were to greatly influenced by
the censors to write a truthful work
they "either wrote propaganda,
shut up, or fought" "The only
true writing that came through dur
ing the war was poetry"
The selections that he includes
concerning the present war show that
the modern world is not so narrow
minded in its concept of wartime cen
sorship.
(Any book reviewed in this column
viii be sent to you postpaid by the
Washington College Bookstore, Ches-
tertOwn, Md, upon receipt of order
accompanied by check or money
Order.)