John Dos Passos

John Dos Passos's second novel, Three Soldiers, was published in 1921 after many rejections from publishers and censorship squabbles. The novel, which was hailed as a masterpiece on its original publication, stands as one of the most grimly honest portraits of World War I. This anti-war novel focuses on three soldiers- Fuselli, an Italian American store clerk from San Francisco; Chrisfield, a farm boy from Indiana; and Andrews, a musically gifted Harvard graduate from New York-who endure long waits in the trenches punctuated by terrifying firefights filled with poison gas. The military strategy of the direct frontal assault combined with the use of airplanes, grenades, and mustard gas as military weapons assures mutual destruction. Three Soldiers explores fear and ambition, conformity and rebellion, desertion and violence in the context of impossible circumstances. The book remains a towering testament to the brutal and dehumanizing effects of a regimented war machine on ordinary soldiers. This Warbler Classics edition includes a detailed biographical timeline.

Harlan Miners Speak, originally published in 1932, remains today a vivid record of the plight of coal miners in eastern Kentucky. Led by prominent left-leaning writers Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, and Sherwood Anderson, the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners traveled to Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1931 to examine the situation of the miners and their families.

Telemachus had wandered so far in search of his father he had quite forgotten what he was looking for. He sat on a yellow plush bench in the caf El Oro del Rhin, Plaza Santa Ana, Madrid, swabbing up with a bit of bread the last smudges of brown sauce off a plate of which the edges were piled with the dismembered skeleton of a pigeon. Opposite his plate was a similar plate his companion had already polished. Telemachus put the last piece of bread into his mouth, drank down a glass of beer at one spasmodic gulp, sighed, leaned across the table and said: "I wonder why I'm here." "Why anywhere else than here?" said Lyaeus, a young man with hollow cheeks and slow-moving hands, about whose mouth a faint pained smile was continually hovering, and he too drank down his beer.

"Yes.... I never used to think that at nineteen I'd be crossing the Atlantic to go to a war in France." The boy caught himself up suddenly and blushed. Then swallowing a lump in his throat he said, "It ought to be time to eat." "God help Kaiser Bill O-o-o old Uncle Sam. He's got the cavalry, He's got the infantry, He's got the artillery; And then by God we'll all go to Germany God help Kaiser Bill " The iron covers are clamped on the smoking-room windows, for no lights must show. So the air is dense with tobacco smoke and the reek of beer and champagne. In one corner they are playing poker with their coats off.

This classic exploration of human history vis-a-vis its link to Christianity ponders the question: What makes human beings uniquely human? In this thoughtful response to the rampant social Darwinism of the early twentieth century, G. K. Chesterton explains how religion -- a blend of philosophy and mythology -- satisfies both the human intellect and the spirit, and sets man starkly apart from any other living creature. Written in 1925, this enduring polemic still strikes a modern chord. Addressing evolution, feminism, and cultural relativism within the context of religion, the book also examines religious skepticism. How does one sustain belief in Jesus Christ -- and the Church -- when, throughout history, the key to religious truth has been constantly reshaped? According to Chesterton, the shape of the key is not important. What matters is that it fits the lock and opens the door. An emphatic affirmation of Christian faith, The Everlasting Man is leavened with the author's characteristic wit and wisdom, and appeals to the mind as well as the heart.