War the Creator

Burgess, Gelett, 1866-1951Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 75K words
Chapters: 8

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.War the Creator by Gelett BurgessAuthor: Burgess, Gelett, 1866-1951,Language: English, Class: D501: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: World War I (1914-1918), Release Date: Feb 6, 2017

Editor's review

This book is a collection of essays by Gelett Burgess on World War I, included in Project Gutenberg's world history category. Burgess is best known as a novelist and humorist, yet here he turns to a serious reflection on the relationship between war and creation: war is not merely destruction; how it reshapes social order, technology, ideas, and the human spirit is the question the book returns to throughout. The prose preserves the ease and reflectiveness of early twentieth-century English essays. It is short and well suited as a side reader for understanding the mindset of intellectuals during World War I. Readers should not expect a systematic military history or data verification; it is better treated as a spiritual cross-section of an era, a quiet read that conveys the bewilderment of people a century ago over the paradox of war. The English original demands some language ability, but the sentences are generally plain and can be read through with the help of notes.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in the intellectual history of World War I
Those who enjoy the essay form and are willing to read the English original slowly
Students and enthusiasts studying the relationship between war and civilization
Readers who wish to understand the mindset of early twentieth-century intellectuals

Not a good fit for

Readers of military history looking for battle accounts and military data
Beginners who find English reading difficult and need a Chinese translation
Readers who prefer systematic theoretical works to essays

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the overall argument, then go back to key passages and take notes.
Read alongside a basic timeline of World War I to better understand the author's historical context.
Skip unfamiliar words at first and look them up together after finishing a section, so as not to break your train of thought.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a military history?

No. It is reflective writing in essay form, focused on the relationship between war and creation and on social change, not on the course of battles, troop deployments, or statistics. If you want a systematic account of World War I, choose a military history; this book is better as a supplement on the level of ideas.

How difficult is the English, and what level is needed?

The original is an early twentieth-century English essay. The sentences are relatively plain, but the vocabulary has a period flavor. Readers with college-level English reading ability who can read through with a dictionary should manage. It is advisable to sample the first few pages and continue if you understand them smoothly.

Why does the Gutenberg edition give 2019?

Project Gutenberg provides free ebooks. The year in an entry is usually when that electronic edition was posted or prepared, not the year the work was first published. The original work dates from the early twentieth century, so readers should distinguish the date of the electronic edition from the historical background of the work itself.

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About the author

Burgess, Gelett, 1866-1951 Author

Gelett Burgess (1866–1951) was an American writer, illustrator, and humorous poet, best known for his satirical children's literature on manners and his wordplay. His representative works, Goops and How to Be Them and More Goops and How Not to Be Them, depict children's rude behavior through comic "Goop" figures, conveying etiquette in a teasing manner that delighted readers. He also compiled Burgess Unabridged: A new dictionary of words you have always needed, collecting invented words and displaying his linguistic keenness and playfulness; short verses such as The Purple Cow! likewise reflect his light, witty style. The library holds eight of his works, including War the Creator, The Rubaiyat of Omar Cayenne, and Are You a Bromide?. Public information is limited, but his writing centers on childlike humor, satirical etiquette, and linguistic experiment, giving him a distinctive place in popular humorous literature.