Gerald Vizenor’s Blue Ravens, showcased in the book’s subtitle as a “historical novel”, tells the story of Basile and Aloysius Beaulieu, two Anishinaabe brothers from the White Earth reservation who are drafted in the American Expeditionary Force to serve in the Great War.
The essay explores the extent to which the originators of the modern American war story can also be considered as anti-war writers. The notion of what it means to be "anti-war" is also explored.
Among the Italian responses to Hemingway’s death, Alberto Moravia’s stands out for his condemnation of the US writer’s cult of his publica persona. Comparing Hemingway to D’Annunzio, Moravia comes very close to calling Hemingway himself if not a Fascist, certainly someone whose values were close to Fascist ones. Moravia’s essay sparked a lively debate, with many Italian critics and writers coming out in defense of Hemingway, even when they may have been critical of specific aspects of his work.
After offering some preliminary remarks on the notion of what makes
a “captive mind,” the article shifts its attention to one of the most signi
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ficant and yet relatively neglected early essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson,
the essay “War.” This text, I argue, deserves not only to be considered
the (largely forgotten) founding document of the American anti-war
movement, but it remains important even today, as it sheds light
on the inevitable contradictions and double-binds any serious move
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