Written in the decade before the publication of his famous U.S.A. trilogy, the three early novels collected in this Library of America volume record the emergence of John Dos Passos as a bold and accomplished chronicler of the upheavals of the early 20th century. Dos Passos drew upon his experiences as a volunteer ambulance driver serving near Verdun in writing One Man's Initiation: 1917 (1920), in which an idealistic young...