The Great War, as World War I was known, was only half-done, but already its industrial carnage had no parallel in European history. It was this quality that Tolkien witnessed among his comrades on the Western Front. According to the British historian Martin Gilbert, who interviewed Tolkien decades later about his combat experience, he came under intense enemy fire. When Tolkien’s trilogy was published, shortly after World War II, many readers assumed that the story of the Ring was a warning about the nuclear age. “Junior officers were being killed off, a dozen a minute,” recalled J. R. R. Tolkien.

Source: New York Times July 01, 2016 00:22 UTC