The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 11

Ambrose Bierce wrote with a blade, and these essays cut deeper than most. This collection, subtitled 'Antepenultima,' gathers his sharpest commentary on the American scene: politicians and pohibs, morality and mayhem, the fragile machinery of civilization and the men who would wreck it. Bierce brings the same savage precision he wielded in 'The Devil's Dictionary' to essays that dissect authority, interrogate tradition, and blast the sacred cows of his era. He writes about war with the blood-knowledge of a man who survived it, about religion with the irreverence of a skeptic, about progress with the suspicion of a cynic. These are not dusty relics from a vanished age. They are time capsules wired with dynamite. Read them and you will recognize every politician, every pontificator, every fool demanding deference in the present moment. Bierce saw through the illusions of his time. The pity is he would see through ours too.