The Boys' Crusade: The American Infantry in Northwestern Europe, 1944-1945 (Modern Library Chronicles)
by: Paul Fussell
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Product Description:
The Boys’ Crusade is the great historian Paul Fussell’s unflinching and unforgettable account of the American infantryman’s experiences in Europe during World War II. Based in part on the author’s own experiences, it provides a stirring narrative of what the war was actually like, from the point of view of the children—for children they were—who fought it. While dealing definitively with issues of strategy, leadership, context, and tactics, Fussell has an additional purpose: to tear away the veil of feel-good mythology that so often obscures and sanitizes war’s brutal essence.
“A chronicle should deal with nothing but the truth,” Fussell writes in his Preface. Accord-ingly, he eschews every kind of sentimentalism, focusing instead on the raw action and human emotion triggered by the intimacy, horror, and intense sorrows of war, and honestly addressing the errors, waste, fear, misery, and resentments that plagued both sides. In the vast literature on World War II, The Boys’ Crusade stands wholly apart. Fussell’s profoundly honest portrayal of these boy soldiers underscores their bravery even as it deepens our awareness of their experiences. This book is both a tribute to their noble service and a valuable lesson for future generations.
From the Hardcover edition.
The Boys’ Crusade is the great historian Paul Fussell’s unflinching and unforgettable account of the American infantryman’s experiences in Europe during World War II. Based in part on the author’s own experiences, it provides a stirring narrative of what the war was actually like, from the point of view of the children—for children they were—who fought it. While dealing definitively with issues of strategy, leadership, context, and tactics, Fussell has an additional purpose: to tear away the veil of feel-good mythology that so often obscures and sanitizes war’s brutal essence.
“A chronicle should deal with nothing but the truth,” Fussell writes in his Preface. Accord-ingly, he eschews every kind of sentimentalism, focusing instead on the raw action and human emotion triggered by the intimacy, horror, and intense sorrows of war, and honestly addressing the errors, waste, fear, misery, and resentments that plagued both sides. In the vast literature on World War II, The Boys’ Crusade stands wholly apart. Fussell’s profoundly honest portrayal of these boy soldiers underscores their bravery even as it deepens our awareness of their experiences. This book is both a tribute to their noble service and a valuable lesson for future generations.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: 
- Difficult to categorize.
If this is your first experience with Paul Fussell, or your first attempt to delve into the American army's experience in western Europe in 1944-45, then The Boys' Crusade might only whet your appetite on both counts.Readers already familiar with one or both, stand to be disappointed.Another review of this book said that Fussell gives us here an "impressionistic" look at the American infantry in the ETO from June, 1944 onward, and I believe that's as good a description as any.Like an impressionist ... Read More
Rating: - Highly Readable, Pithy, But Ultimately Disappointing
A hard and very fast book, edged with bitterness throughout. Fussell illustrates the war in many quick stories, and I found "The Boys Crusade" hard to put down.
The author's story would have greater force, however, if he had provided references for his pithy anecdotes. The reader would give this slim volume more weight if more of the short asides and illustrations were annotated. Fussell has written much better books. There have also been much better books about the last year of World War II ... Read More
Rating: - Not Fussell's Best
Paul Fussell served in the US Army infantry in Europe during World War Two. It was the defining event of his life. His war-related writings unrelentingly attempt to de-romanticize warfare in general and infantry service in particular by bluntly portraying the horrors of modern battle.
The Boys' Crusade is a thin volume of short chapters covering familiar ground. There's not much new here. The discussion of the COBRA affair highlights the book's small strengths and major weakness. COBRA was a ... Read More
Rating: 
- No illusions
This little book reflects the reality of infantry life better than 99% of military histories.
Rating: - 1944
Fussell is a very good writer, but I agree with many of the previous reviews here: it's a small book that rehashes a lot of more complete histories.I also found much of it very much in the vain of the revisionist, left wing criticisms of many of our actions during the Second World War, which, of course, is the current vogue.
War is hell.I've never experienced it, but it is very much a given that it is a terrible, terrible thing.Nonetheless, we had to do what we had to do over in Europe, ... Read More
- Difficult to categorize.If this is your first experience with Paul Fussell, or your first attempt to delve into the American army's experience in western Europe in 1944-45, then The Boys' Crusade might only whet your appetite on both counts.Readers already familiar with one or both, stand to be disappointed.Another review of this book said that Fussell gives us here an "impressionistic" look at the American infantry in the ETO from June, 1944 onward, and I believe that's as good a description as any.Like an impressionist ... Read More
- Highly Readable, Pithy, But Ultimately DisappointingA hard and very fast book, edged with bitterness throughout. Fussell illustrates the war in many quick stories, and I found "The Boys Crusade" hard to put down.
The author's story would have greater force, however, if he had provided references for his pithy anecdotes. The reader would give this slim volume more weight if more of the short asides and illustrations were annotated. Fussell has written much better books. There have also been much better books about the last year of World War II ... Read More
- Not Fussell's BestPaul Fussell served in the US Army infantry in Europe during World War Two. It was the defining event of his life. His war-related writings unrelentingly attempt to de-romanticize warfare in general and infantry service in particular by bluntly portraying the horrors of modern battle.
The Boys' Crusade is a thin volume of short chapters covering familiar ground. There's not much new here. The discussion of the COBRA affair highlights the book's small strengths and major weakness. COBRA was a ... Read More
- No illusionsThis little book reflects the reality of infantry life better than 99% of military histories.
- 1944Fussell is a very good writer, but I agree with many of the previous reviews here: it's a small book that rehashes a lot of more complete histories.I also found much of it very much in the vain of the revisionist, left wing criticisms of many of our actions during the Second World War, which, of course, is the current vogue.
War is hell.I've never experienced it, but it is very much a given that it is a terrible, terrible thing.Nonetheless, we had to do what we had to do over in Europe, ... Read More
