Classic Revisited: Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front

Peace Through Law?
The Failure of a Noble Experiment

All Quiet on the Western Front, By Erich Maria Remarque. A.W. Wheen trans. 1929. New York: Ballantine Books. 1982. Pp. 296. $13.95.

Ever since its publication in 1929, Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front has been regarded as a landmark of antiwar literature. Appearing a decade after the end of the First World War, the novel became a literary sensation almost overnight. Within a year of publication, it had been translated into twenty languages, including Chinese, and by April 1930, sales for twelve of the twenty editions stood at 2.5 million. Remarque was reputed to have the largest readership in the world. Hollywood took note, and an equally successful film appeared in 1930.