Critical Insights: All Quiet on the Western Front

"Finally, the truth about war," reviewers proclaimed when All Quiet on the Western Front was published in 1928, ten years after World War I had ended. Shockingly direct, it painted a decidedly unromantic portrait of the war in which Remarque had briefly fought and quickly became an international sensation. And today, even after eighty years and after tens of millions of soldiers have died in wars, readers keep turning to the novel for answers.