About this book
John Dos Passos's One Man's Initiation—1917 captures the raw, transformative experience of a young American soldier embarking for Europe during World War I. Through the eyes of Martin Howe, a nineteen-year-old volunteer, Dos Passos traces the pivotal moments that reshape an idealistic youth into a man confronted by the brutal realities of modern warfare.
Published in 1922, this pioneering war novel stands as one of the first literary examinations of American involvement in the Great War. Rather than glorifying combat, Dos Passos presents an unflinching portrait of disillusionment—from the chaotic excitement of departure to the sobering encounters with death, suffering, and moral ambiguity on the battlefield. His modernist prose style captures the fragmentation and sensory overwhelm of wartime experience, blending vivid imagery with psychological depth.
The novel explores timeless themes of innocence lost, the gap between propaganda and reality, and the cost of idealism in a mechanized world. Dos Passos's experimental narrative technique influenced generations of writers grappling with how to represent collective historical trauma.
This audiobook is ideal for history enthusiasts, literature students, and anyone seeking to understand the American experience in World War I beyond textbooks. It remains essential listening for those interested in how great writers transform personal experience into universal truths about war and coming of age.
