Nineteen Nineteen Author:John Dos Passos "The obscenity of the war, "Mr. Wilson's War," is Dos Passos' theme, and since this war is the most important political event of the century, he rises to this theme with a brilliance that does not conceal the fury behind it." Thus Alfred Kazin describes Nineteen Nineteen, the central novel of the U.S.A. trilogy. With the devices of the Camera Ey... more »e, the biographies, and the newsreels, and with the stories of the novel's characters, Dos Passos creates an unequalled portrayal of a war-crazed America and war-ravaged Europe. The spreading contagion of violence means profit for some, sexual adventure for others, and for still others it is a time of testing, with a choice between the sell-out of youthful idealism and a trip to the penitentiary. Brilliantly depicting a swarm of varied lives, synthesizing on every level a nation's brutal and brutalizing orgy of repression, cant and corruption, Nineteen Nineteen speaks with timeless art - and timely relevance. As Jean-Paul Sartre has written, "I regard Dos Passos as the greatest writer of our time."« less