Search

Examining Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front through Barbie Zelizer's work on collective memory, this study argues that Remarque garnered the authority to tell the story of the WWI experience. This shift in storytelling simplified the account of trench warfare and provided to a general audience what Zelizer calls the 'important, preferred, and appropriate' story of the WWI soldier to a transnational public sphere. As the public accepted the collective memory account in Remarque's story, they grew to distrust and de-authorize the official memories of nation states and media outlets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]