All Quiet on the Western Front

De: Erich Maria Remarque, Mitch Horowitz - introduction

Narrado por: Grover Gardner, Mitch Horowitz

One of modernity’s greatest novels—fully reset with a new introduction by PEN Award-winning historian Mitch Horowitz

History offers few records of war as vivid, haunting, and evocative as Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. Burned by the Nazis, feted by critics, embraced by millions, Remarque’s dramatized record of the German frontlines in World War I is central to the experience of modern literature and history.

As enthralling to twenty-first century audiences as it was to those who first encountered the book in 1928, Remarque’s landmark tells the story of a young German volunteer who, with his comrades, moves from idealism to fatalism witnessing the horrors of mass killing and the intimate deaths of friends or the disfiguring survival of young men languishing in field hospitals. It is a work, finally, not just about World War I but about all wars—with a moral core that exposes the lies by which we live.

This reset edition presents the original, classic translation by Arthur Wesley Wheen. A new introduction by historian Mitch Horowitz frames the book’s ethical insights and considers whether they impact humanity’s viewpoint. “We cannot live with ourselves without also living with war’s lessons, resounding in this book,” he writes, “even as we prove incapable of acting on them.”

In considering why works like All Quiet on the Western Front fail to reduce the possibility of war, Mitch opens a new window on a work of posterity nearly a century old—and on humanity’s eternal predicament.

“Its autumnal mood of loss, pathos and quiet grief left a lasting impression on a legion of readers. Because its subject was war—all war—and the pain and waste that accompany it, the book breathed an air of conciliation welcomed among those who had been the enemy. There are some books, like Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Grapes of Wrath, that sum up a moment of passionate yearning. These books are beyond criticism; All Quiet is one of that company.”—The New York Times

©1929 Erich Maria Remarque (P)2025 Maple Spring Publishing

Superb version of a timeless classic

I first read All Quiet on the Western Front years ago, when I was still in school during the years of Viet Nam. It was extremely powerful, gripping, and terrifying then. It still is.
I was happy to see this version released, as Grover Gardner is my favorite narrator. It was a moving experience to listen to this again. It's still as forceful and relevant today as it was when I first read it. Gardner does his usual wonderful job as the reader. Highly recommended to first-time readers or those who have read it before and want to revisit this timeless story of the futility and terror of war. And surely few wars were as futile and senseless as WW1, a war which still heavily impacts us to this very day, Few generations were as decimated as was the generation of men who fought in the trenches of The Great War. This is a graphic portrayal of what the war was like to those who had to fight it, superbly performed.