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The flâneur has remained little more than a hazy, nostalgic figure since first described in detail by Baudelaire in 19th-century Paris. Here, the work of Walter Benjamin, who did more than any other to advance the notion of flânerie post-Baudelaire, is considered alongside that of his friend and critic Theodor Adorno, in an attempt to conceive of a modern-day version of the type. The many critical exchanges between Adorno and Benjamin are envisioned as a moving dialectic: a constant interplay between anticipation and suspicion. What results is a concept of flânerie that mingles a tentatively optimistic Benjamin with a perpetually sceptical Adorno, in order to conjure up an image of the individual strolling and wandering about the margins of contemporary urbanity, balanced on the cusp of hope and hopelessness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the literary works of French author Louis Aragon. Representation of the author's experiences of the Second World War in his prose writings; Desire of the author to ensure remembrance of those who died in the war; Examples of the author's writings.

This response to William Philpott's 'Why the British Were Really on the Somme' (War in History xi, 4) underlines Philpott's failure to take adequate account of French sources, dismisses his long defence of Kitchener as beside the point and views his 'strategic paradox' as no more convincing for its reiteration. His 'seven types of success', offered as an alternative to my judgement that the 1916 battle of the Somme was a failure, are demonstrated to be fragile, nugatory and unsubstantiated. The theme of the response is that an examination and knowledge of French archival and published sources are crucial to any balanced understanding of the Somme battle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]