Civilization, 1914–1917
Georges Duhamel
New Introduction by Catherine Savage Brosman
Civilization, 1914–1917 is a largely autobiographical narrative of the Great War written
by a remarkable observer—a French physician, poet, and novelist who treated the
wounded and performed some two thousand operations in mobile hospital units during the war. First published in 1918 and translated into English the following year, the
book was awarded the Prix Goncourt and a special award of the Académie Française.
Out of print for ninety years, Georges Duhamel’s account is available once more in this
Joseph M. Bruccoli Great War Series edition featuring a new introduction by Catharine
Savage Brosman, which offers a biographical sketch of Duhamel and places his work
within the context of French narratives of World War I.
Duhamel’s book comprises sixteen vignettes in which character rather than plot
remains the constant focus. Each tale is presented in the first person but with varying
narrators. The settings are often field medical units just miles away from the bombardments. Here the stench of blood, plight of the wounded, and efforts of wellintentioned doctors bring to the fore the realities of war as Duhamel knew them to be.
Pathos, anger, and frustration are more plentiful than any sense of glory, duty, or honor
in these circumstances. In lieu of the political and nationalistic considerations of war
that dominate the writings of some of his contemporaries, Duhamel’s narratives offer
instead the historical and literary merits of his keen attention to details—particularly
concerning combat medicine—and his rich development of the varied tones, characters, and locations of his sketches. Throughout the book Duhamel pits those characters
and efforts meant to preserve and mend humanity against an overarching machine
age and its armored acolytes intent on human destruction. The resulting collection
works to bear authoritative witness to the war on the Western Front and to extract
from the author’s experiences some measure of poetic truth about the nature of civilization in our modern age.
The Joseph M. Bruccoli Great War Series • Matthew J. Bruccoli, series editor
August 2009, 312 pages
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A prolific writer, Georges Duhamel
(1884–1966) authored more than sixty
volumes of fiction, nonfiction, and
poetry along with several plays. In
1935 he was elected to a seat at the
Académie Française.
Catharine Savage Brosman is
professor emerita of French at Tulane
University and an honorary research
professor at the University of Sheffield.
She is the author of numerous books
on nineteenth- and twentieth-century
French literature, including Visions of
War in France: Fiction, Art, Ideology.
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