Melding the personal with the political, Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That is both a literary masterpiece and the definitive account of the horrors of World War I. Using anecdotes from his own life prior to his enlistment in the army — his upper-crust upbringing, his privileged private school education — Graves illustrates the stark contrast between life in the trenches and life at home. Like many other soldiers who suffered appalling conditions and witnessed the tragic and ignorant blunders of senior military figures while on the front line, Graves returned to England a haunted man, forever disillusioned with the hypocrisy of traditional British values. First published in 1929, Goodbye to All That is a cathartic and candid look at Britain’s involvement in WWI. Intense, unsettling, and enlightening, this compelling memoir is vital to understanding not only the battles of the First World War, but the events and social attitudes of the Jazz Age and beyond.

Melding the personal with the political, Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That is both a literary masterpiece and the definitive account of the horrors of World War I. Using anecdotes from his own life prior to his enlistment in the army — his upper-crust upbringing, his privileged private school education — Graves illustrates the stark contrast between life in the trenches and life at home. Like many other soldiers who suffered appalling conditions and witnessed the tragic and ignorant blunders of senior military figures while on the front line, Graves returned to England a haunted man, forever disillusioned with the hypocrisy of traditional British values. First published in 1929, Goodbye to All That is a cathartic and candid look at Britain’s involvement in WWI. Intense, unsettling, and enlightening, this compelling memoir is vital to understanding not only the battles of the First World War, but the events and social attitudes of the Jazz Age and beyond.