Posters of the First World War

Born in the leisurely days of the end of the nineteenth century, the poster suddenly came of age in August 1914. In a world without radio and television, and where the newspaper was still too new and too longwinded for the ordinary man, the poster was the one big medium of mass communication. In a world that also required that men and materials be flung at each other in unceasing profusion, the poster was a vital munition of war, a power-supply of motivation and morale. It did not fail.

The battlefields where millions died have grown green again. So, for some, have memories. But the posters that helped to bring men to the fight remain unchanged. They speak with the same merciless urgency, the same command and conviction as they did when they first appeared. They are gathered here in this book, for our reflection.

Whether we view them as works of art (which many undoubtedly are), as works of social reference, or merely as witnesses of man's capacity for harm and heroism, their overall impact is unforgettable. In their confrontation, now face to face across the pages of this volume, there is added impact. We see the universality of exhortation, whatever the language; the same heroic figures, the same wounded, the same orphans and refugees, the same fears. Between them, no matter what their nationality, there is a strange companionship.

Selected and reviewed by a writer who is himself a poster artistand incidentally a lifelong pacifist  this collection, published on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1918 Armistice, is a challenge to us all; here in over two hundred posters is the whole predicament of life. the disparity, the futility, the dignity and the universality of the human condition.

24 pages in colour included.