All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front is a classic tale of a young German soldier's harrowing experiences in the trenches of World War I, widely acclaimed as the greatest war novel of all time. The book includes an introduction by bestselling author Sebastian Faulks.

When twenty-year-old Paul Bäumer and his classmates enlist in the German army during World War I, they are full of youthful enthusiasm. However, the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught to believe in shatters under the first brutal bombardment in the trenches. Through the ensuing years of horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another.

Erich Maria Remarque's classic novel not only portrays in vivid detail the combatants' physical and mental trauma but also dramatizes the tragic detachment from civilian life felt by many upon returning home. Remarque's stated intention—to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war—remains as powerful and relevant as ever, a century after that conflict's end.