The missing of the Somme

""[The author's] journey of inquiry takes him from the cemeteries and one-time battlefields of Flanders to the memorials that stand in every town and village in Britain, from the countless poems, memoirs, photographs and documentaries that the Great War spawned to an old family album whose images record how this most far-reaching event touched the lives of his own grandparents. Relying more on personal impressions than systematic analysis, Geoff Dyer weaves a network of myth and memory that illuminates our own relation to the past"--Jacket."@en
"'Head bowed, rifle on his back, a soldier is silhouetted against the going down of the sun, looking at the grave of a dead comrade, remembering him. A photograph from the war, is also a photograph of the way the war will be remembered. It is a photograph of the future, of the future's view of the past. We will remember them' Relying more on personal impressions than systematic analysis, Geoff Dyer weaves a network of myth and memory that illuminates our own relation to the past."
"This reflection on World War I is not your standard history; it's about mourning and memory, about how the Great War has been represented. It will appeal to readers interested in looking beyond the facts to the meaning and consequences of war in general."