All Quiet on the Western Front
A young German soldier and his classmates are destroyed, body and soul, by the trenches of the Western Front.
The Verdict
No novel did more to shape how the twentieth century remembers war. Erich Maria Remarque, himself a wounded veteran of the Western Front, wrote the story of Paul Bäumer and his schoolmates — boys talked into enlisting by a patriotic teacher, then fed one by one into the mud, gas, and shellfire until nothing of their youth survives. Its power is its flatness: no heroics, no nationalism, just the methodical extinction of a generation, narrated in a voice drained of everything but endurance. The Nazis burned it for telling the truth.
Who Should Read It
Read it if you want
- The defining novel of the First World War
- The German soldier's view of the Western Front
- A short, devastating place to begin
- The book that created the disillusioned war voice
Look elsewhere if you want
- Strategy, generals, or the big picture
- A heroic or redemptive arc
- Anything resembling consolation
Why We Rated It 4.9
Historical Context
Published in German in 1929 as Im Westen nichts Neues, it draws on Remarque's own service and wounds on the Western Front. An immediate worldwide bestseller, it was banned and publicly burned by the Nazis in 1933, and Remarque went into exile. The 1930 American film won the Academy Award for Best Picture; a new adaptation appeared in 2022.
Events Covered
Editions & Reading Notes
Read It Alongside
Collector's Corner
Where to Buy
ISBN: 978-0449213940
Read This Against
The same events seen from a different vantage point. The fullest understanding often lives in the space between accounts that don't agree.
Other Books About the Same Events
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is All Quiet on the Western Front based on a true story?
- It is fiction, but Remarque served on the Western Front and was wounded; the novel draws on that experience, though Paul Bäumer is invented.
- Why did the Nazis ban it?
- Its unsparing, anti-heroic portrait of the war clashed with Nazi militarism; the book was burned in 1933 and Remarque's German citizenship was later revoked.
- Which translation should I read?
- The classic Wheen and the modern Murdoch translations are both widely used; either serves for a first read.