Wasteland: The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror

The Washington Post, “One of the Best Books to Take You Off the Beaten Track” A historian and Bram Stoker Award nominee explores the birth of modern horror films and literature—tracing their origins back to the confluence of military history, technology, and art circa World War I From Nosferatu to Frankenstein’s monster, from Fritz Lang to James Whale, the touchstones of horror can all trace their roots to the bloodshed of the First World War. Bram Stoker Award nominee W. Scott Poole traces the confluence of military history, technology, and art in the wake of World War I to show how overwhelming carnage gave birth to a wholly new art form: modern horror films and literature. “Poole’s general conclusions about World War I’s transformation into art, and the process of psychological displacement that accompanied it, are incontestable.” —The Wall Street Journal