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All Quiet On The Western Front

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As scientific innovations and developments push the frontier of our technological capabilities, the threat of using them for evil is an all too present reality. While at the height of the Cold War, John F. Kennedy said, "Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.". In his groundbreaking book, All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich M. Remarque seeks to spread this pacifistic message and anti-war sentiment, after the devastation brought by the First World War (Remarque 1982). As the biggest, most technological advanced and deadliest war of its time, this new breed of warfare has left ripples all across the fabric of the global society (Rowley 2003). Remarque wanted to use this book to recreate the horrors of this war in a fictional, yet ghastly tale. In his own words, he wishes All Quiet On The Western Front "to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure..." (Remarque 1982). Having served personally on the German front lines during the First World War, Remarque translates this firsthand experience of the war into this book (Gale 2003). He wanted to pay homage to his fallen comrades of his generation, saying "It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who were destroyed by the war" (Remarque 1982). Remarque weaves a tale that gives a new, horrifying, and shocking account of the trauma that soldiers face on a daily basis while on the front (Gale 2003). He uses this, and his own experiences from, and after, fighting in

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