Author: Yoshikuni Igarashi
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400842980
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 295
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Book Description
Japan and the United States became close political allies so quickly after the end of World War II, that it seemed as though the two countries had easily forgotten the war they had fought. Here Yoshikuni Igarashi offers a provocative look at how Japanese postwar society struggled to understand its war loss and the resulting national trauma, even as forces within the society sought to suppress these memories. Igarashi argues that Japan's nationhood survived the war's destruction in part through a popular culture that expressed memories of loss and devastation more readily than political discourse ever could. He shows how the desire to represent the past motivated Japan's cultural productions in the first twenty-five years of the postwar period. Japanese war experiences were often described through narrative devices that downplayed the war's disruptive effects on Japan's history. Rather than treat these narratives as obstacles to historical inquiry, Igarashi reads them along with counter-narratives that attempted to register the original impact of the war. He traces the tensions between remembering and forgetting by focusing on the body as the central site for Japan's production of the past. This approach leads to fascinating discussions of such diverse topics as the use of the atomic bomb, hygiene policies under the U.S. occupation, the monstrous body of Godzilla, the first Western professional wrestling matches in Japan, the transformation of Tokyo and the athletic body for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and the writer Yukio Mishima's dramatic suicide, while providing a fresh critical perspective on the war legacy of Japan.
Author: Marilyn Yalom
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503614042
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 207
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Book Description
In a book that will touch hearts and minds, acclaimed cultural historian Marilyn Yalom presents firsthand accounts of six witnesses to war, each offering lasting memories of how childhood trauma transforms lives. The violence of war leaves indelible marks, and memories last a lifetime for those who experienced this trauma as children. Marilyn Yalom experienced World War II from afar, safely protected in her home in Washington, DC. But over the course of her life, she came to be close friends with many less lucky, who grew up under bombardment across Europe—in France, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, England, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Holland. With Innocent Witnesses, Yalom collects the stories from these accomplished luminaries and brings us voices of a vanishing generation, the last to remember World War II. Memory is notoriously fickle: it forgets most of the past, holds on to bits and pieces, and colors the truth according to unconscious wishes. But in the circle of safety Marilyn Yalom created for her friends, childhood memories return in all their startling vividness. This powerful collage of testimonies offers us a greater understanding of what it is to be human, not just then but also today. With this book, her final and most personal work of cultural history, Yalom considers the lasting impact of such young experiences—and asks whether we will now force a new generation of children to spend their lives reconciling with such memories.
Author: Dorinda Nicholson
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1426322518
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 64
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Book Description
Allows readers to understand World War II, not as seen through the eyes of soldiers, but through the eyes of children who survived the bombings, the blackouts, the hunger, the fear, and the loss of loved ones caused by the war.
Author: Peter Leese
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319334700
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313
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Book Description
This collection investigates the social and cultural history of trauma to offer a comparative analysis of its individual, communal, and political effects in the twentieth century. Particular attention is given to witness testimony, to procedures of personal memory and collective commemoration, and to visual sources as they illuminate the changing historical nature of trauma. The essays draw on diverse methodologies, including oral history, and use varied sources such as literature, film and the broadcast media. The contributions discuss imaginative, communal and political responses, as well as the ways in which the later welfare of traumatized individuals is shaped by medical, military, and civilian institutions. Incorporating innovative methodologies and offering a thorough evaluation of current research, the book shows new directions in historical trauma studies.
Author: Luciano Louis Charles Graziano
Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
ISBN: 1489720499
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 142
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Book Description
It was January 1943 when twenty-year-old Louis Graziano received a letter from Uncle Sam ordering him to report to Fort Niagara, New York, for a physical. Although he knew the United States was at war, he had no idea what was ahead of him. After making a promise to dutifully defend his country, Louis never realized how much his military experience would change the course of his life. In a memoir that reveals the good, bad, and ugly of war and beyond, Louis leads others through his life experiences via personal stories and historical photographs that provide a candid glimpse into what it was like to be a young soldier before, during, and after World War II. While revealing his experiences and thoughts, Louis demonstrates how he exhibited courage amid heartbreaking loss, trusted God to protect him, and found love with a beautiful fellow soldier. Among his documented experiences were landing with the third wave on D-Day on Omaha Beach, fighting the Battle of the Bulge, and witnessing the signing of the Instrument of Surrender at the Little Red Schoolhouse. Included are personal letters and commendations as well as interesting historical facts. A Patriot’s Memoirs of World War II shares a veteran’s personal story and photographs that document his experiences during the biggest and deadliest war in history.
Author: Christian Karner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135129654X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291
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Book Description
Decades after the previously unimaginable horrors of the Nazi extermination camps and the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, their memories remain part of our lives. In academic and human terms, preserving awareness of this past is an ethical imperative. This volume concerns narratives about—and allusions to—World War II across contemporary Europe, and explains why contemporary Europeans continue to be drawn to it as a template of comparison, interpretation, even prediction. This volume adds a distinctly interdisciplinary approach to the trajectories of recent academic inquiries. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, linguists, political scientists, and area study specialists contribute wide-ranging theoretical paradigms, disciplinary frameworks, and methodological approaches. The volume focuses on how, where, and to what effect World War II has been remembered. The editors discuss how World War II in particular continues to be a point of reference across the political spectrum and not only in Europe. It will be of interest for those interested in popular culture, World War II history, and national identity studies.
Author: David L. Hoffmann
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000430294
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330
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Book Description
This volume showcases important new research on World War II memory, both in the Soviet Union and in Russia today. Through an examination of war remembrance in its various forms—official histories, school textbooks, museums, monuments, literature, films, and Victory Day parades—chapters illustrate how the heroic narrative of the war was established in Soviet times and how it continues to shape war memorialization under Putin. This war narrative resonates with the Russian population due to decades of Soviet commemoration, which continued virtually uninterrupted into the post-Soviet period. Major themes of the volume include the use of World War II memory for political legitimation and patriotic mobilization; the striking continuities between Soviet and post-Soviet commemorative practices; the place of Holocaust memorialization in contemporary Russia; Putin’s invocation of the war to bolster national pride and international prestige; and the relationship between individual memory and collective remembrance. Authored by an international group of distinguished specialists, this collection is ideal for scholars of Russia across a range of disciplines, including history, political science, sociology, and cultural studies.
Author: Sir Winston Churchill
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780517270325
Category : World War, 1939-1945
Languages : en
Pages : 1065
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Book Description
Abridged by Denis Kelly.
Author: Daqing Yang
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498567703
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 195
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Book Description
Why do some governments and societies attach great significance to a particular anniversary year whereas others seem less inclined to do so? What motivates the orchestration of elaborate commemorative activities in some countries? What are they supposed to accomplish, for both domestic and international audience? In what ways do commemorations in Asia Pacific fit into the global memory culture of war commemoration? In what ways are these commemorations intertwined with current international politics? This book presents the first large-scale analysis of how countries in the Asia Pacific and beyond commemorated the seventieth anniversaries of the end of World War II. Consisting of in-depth case studies of China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines, United States, Russia, and Germany, this unique collective effort demonstrates how memories of the past as reflected in public commemorations and contemporary politics—both internal and international—profoundly affect each other.
Author: Patrick Finney
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351714740
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392
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Book Description
Remembering the Second World War brings together an international and interdisciplinary cast of leading scholars to explore the remembrance of this conflict on a global scale. Conceptually, it is premised on the need to challenge nation-centric approaches in memory studies, drawing strength from recent transcultural, affective and multidirectional turns. Divided into four thematic parts, this book largely focuses on the post-Cold War period, which has seen a notable upsurge in commemorative activity relating to the Second World War and significant qualitative changes in its character. The first part explores the enduring utility and the limitations of the national frame in France, Germany and China. The second explores transnational transactions in remembrance, looking at memories of the British Empire at war, contested memories in East-Central Europe and the transnational campaign on behalf of Japan’s former ‘comfort women’. A third section considers local and sectional memories of the war and the fourth analyses innovative practices of memory, including re-enactment, video gaming and Holocaust tourism. Offering insightful contributions on intriguing topics and illuminating the current state of the art in this growing field, this book will be essential reading for all students and scholars of the history and memory of the Second World War.
