Americans are the only people in the world known to me whose status anxiety prompts them to advertise their college and university affiliations in the rear window of their automobiles.

 
Doing Battle - The Making of a Skeptic. In between Thank God for the Atom Bomb and Other Essays (1988) confirmed his war against government and military doublespeak and prepared the way for Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War (1989). John Keegan said its effect was "revolutionary" in that it showed how literature could be a vehicle for expressing the experience of large groups.

He is best known for his writings about World War I and II which explore what he felt was the gap between the romantic myth and reality of war; he made a "career out of refusing to disguise it or elevate it". His writings cover a variety of topics from scholarly works on eighteenth-century English literature to commentary on America’s class system.