Paths of glory

Description:

Familiar to many as the Stanley Kubrick film starring Kirk Douglas, *Paths of Glory* explores the perilous complications involved in what nations demand of their soldiers in wartime. Humphrey Cobb's protagonists are Frenchmen during the First World War whose nightmare in the trenches takes a new and terrible turn when they are ordered to assault a German position deemed all but invulnerable. When the attack fails, an inquiry into allegations of cowardice indicts a small handful of lower-ranked scapegoats whose trial exposes the farce of ordering ordinary men to risk their lives in an impossible cause. A chilling portrait of injustice, this novel offers insight into the tragedies of war in any age.

subjects: World War, 1914-1918,  World War, 1914-1918 in fiction,  Fiction,  Fiction in English,  Politics and government,  Military discipline,  Mutiny,  Trials (Treason),  History,  Fiction, general,  Fiction, war & military,  Fiction, historical, general,  World war, 1914-1918, fiction

Places: France

Times: 1914-18,  20th century,  1870-1940