Library of America #364

The Naked and the Dead originally published: New York : Rinehart & Company, 1948

Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead is not just a monumental war novel but also a devastating antiwar novel, exposing the primal nature of power through the interplay of a platoon of soldiers on an impossible and ultimately pointless mission on an obscure island in the Pacific during World War II. Written just after the war ended, in the early days of the emerging Cold War, the novel daringly engages with the authoritarian impulses in the American character

Selected Letters originally published in Advertisements for Myself and A Special Message to Subscribers from Norman Mailer

Includes color maps on endpapers