Wasteland

Author W. Scott Poole
Narrator Andrew Eiden
Publisher Blackstone Publishing
Run Time 11 hours and 31 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Film history, theory or criticism, First World War, Media studies, Popular culture, Social and cultural history.

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What to expect

Historian and Bram Stoker Award nominee W. Scott Poole traces the confluence of history, technology, and art that gave us modern horror films and literature.

In the early twentieth century, World War I was the most devastating event humanity had yet experienced. New machines of war left tens of millions killed or wounded in the most grotesque of ways. The Great War remade the world’s map, created new global powers, and brought forth some of the biggest problems still facing us today. But it also birthed a new art form: the horror film, made from the fears of a generation ruined by war.

From Nosferatu to Frankenstein’s monster and the Wolf Man, from Fritz Lang, F. W. Murnau, and Albin Grau to Tod Browning and James Whale, the touchstones of horror can all trace their roots to the bloodshed of the First World War. Historian W. Scott Poole chronicles these major figures and the many movements they influenced. Wasteland reveals how bloody battlefields, the fear of the corpse, and a growing darkness made their way into the deepest corners of our psyche.

On the one-hundredth anniversary of the signing of the armistice that brought World War I to a close, W. Scott Poole takes us behind the front lines of battle to a no-man’s-land where the legacy of the War to End All Wars lives on.

Critics Review

“Highly persuasive…Poole’s general conclusions about World War I’s transformation into art, and the process of psychological displacement that accompanied it, are incontestable.”
Wall Street Journal
“Andrew Eiden deftly delivers the author’s examination of a popular literary genre through the lens of history…Author and narrator weave an engaging and insightful listen that captures the reality of battle with a sensitive and respectful touch. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
AudioFile
“Wasteland will appeal to film and military buffs, horror fans, those interested in popular culture, and those who seek a better understanding of the escalating violence of the last 100 years…A fascinating read.”
Missourian
“A sophisticated work of cultural history…[with] wide-ranging erudition, strong prose, and clear love and fascination with both history and horror.”
PopMatters
“[A] thoroughly engrossing cultural study…His extensive and well-supported citations will make it hard for readers who haven’t considered the wartime context for horror’s emergence to forget it.”
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Poole brings a scholar’s eye and a devotee’s heart to a study of the literary, film, and artistic incarnations of horror from the World War I period to today.”
Kirkus Reviews
“Elegantly written and cogently argued, Wasteland convincingly demonstrates the modern horror genre’s origins in the great Dance of Death that was the First World War.”
David J. Skal, author of The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror
“W. Scott Poole combines smart readings of the horror classics with detailed knowledge of twentieth-century history, art, and literature to dig deep into the serious side of these popular entertainments. I thought I already knew the subject inside out, but Wasteland introduced me to fresh facts, new ideas, and surprising connections. This is cultural history of a very high order: intelligent, lively, and wonderfully readable.”
Christopher Bram, author of Gods and Monsters

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