I was reminded of this book because the PG Six band (http://www.myspace.com/pgsixband) is rehearsing Fleetwood Mac's "Dust" whose lyrics (despite the lack of credits on the LP sleeve) were adapted from Rupert Brooke who is usually mentioned in the same breath as Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Wilfred Owen as one of the quintessential literary figures of World War I. Fussell's book is about the literary culture that grew up around the war and its profound impact on 20th century literary consciousness, particularly the almost inevitable predominance of irony as the only way to bridge the gap between the highminded and neatly structured ideals of war that the British brought with them out of the comparatively peaceful 19th century and the indiscriminate, brutal and often pointless slaughter that was the reality. Also for those (like me) who feel woefully ignorant of the bare facts of WWI (Passchendaele, Somme, Ypres - at best one knows that one doesn't know the significance of these), you can pick up a lot of basic history along with your sonnets.
I've started this and not finished it before and am likely to do the same this time but at 100 pages in, I felt I could lay claim to it as something legitimately on my shelf.