War and Public Memory

War and Public Memory PDF Author: David A. Messenger
Publisher: University Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817359648
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
An introduction to key issues in the study of war and memory that examines significant conflicts in twentieth-century Europe In order to understand the history of twentieth-century Europe, we must first appreciate and accept how different societies and cultures remember their national conflicts. We must also be aware of the ways that those memories evolve over time. In War and Public Memory: Case Studies in Twentieth-Century Europe, Messenger outlines the relevant history of war and its impact on different European nations, and assesses how and where the memory of these conflicts emerges in political and public discourse and in the public sphere and public spaces of Europe. The case studies presented emphasize the major wars fought on European soil as well as the violence perpetrated against civilian populations. Each chapter begins with a brief overview of the conflict and then proceeds with a study of how memory of that struggle has entered into public consciousness in different national societies. The focus throughout is on collective social, cultural, and public memory, and in particular how memory has emerged in public spaces throughout Europe, such as parks, museums, and memorial sites. Messenger discusses memories of the First World War for both the victors and the vanquished as well as their successor states. Other events discussed include the Bolshevik Revolution and subsequent conflicts in the former Soviet Union, the Armenian genocide, the collapse of Yugoslavia, the legacy of the civil war in Spain, Germanys reckoning with its Nazi past, and the memory of occupation and the Holocaust in France and Poland.

War and Public Memory

War and Public Memory PDF Author: David A. Messenger
Publisher: University Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817359648
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book

Book Description
An introduction to key issues in the study of war and memory that examines significant conflicts in twentieth-century Europe In order to understand the history of twentieth-century Europe, we must first appreciate and accept how different societies and cultures remember their national conflicts. We must also be aware of the ways that those memories evolve over time. In War and Public Memory: Case Studies in Twentieth-Century Europe, Messenger outlines the relevant history of war and its impact on different European nations, and assesses how and where the memory of these conflicts emerges in political and public discourse and in the public sphere and public spaces of Europe. The case studies presented emphasize the major wars fought on European soil as well as the violence perpetrated against civilian populations. Each chapter begins with a brief overview of the conflict and then proceeds with a study of how memory of that struggle has entered into public consciousness in different national societies. The focus throughout is on collective social, cultural, and public memory, and in particular how memory has emerged in public spaces throughout Europe, such as parks, museums, and memorial sites. Messenger discusses memories of the First World War for both the victors and the vanquished as well as their successor states. Other events discussed include the Bolshevik Revolution and subsequent conflicts in the former Soviet Union, the Armenian genocide, the collapse of Yugoslavia, the legacy of the civil war in Spain, Germanys reckoning with its Nazi past, and the memory of occupation and the Holocaust in France and Poland.

Remembering War

Remembering War PDF Author: J. M. Winter
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300127529
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
This is a masterful volume on remembrance and war in the twentieth century. Jay Winter locates the fascination with the subject of memory within a long-term trajectory that focuses on the Great War. Images, languages, and practices that appeared during and after the two world wars focused on the need to acknowledge the victims of war and shaped the ways in which future conflicts were imagined and remembered. At the core of the "memory boom" is an array of collective meditations on war and the victims of war, Winter says. The book begins by tracing the origins of contemporary interest in memory, then describes practices of remembrance that have linked history and memory, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century. The author also considers "theaters of memory"-film, television, museums, and war crimes trials in which the past is seen through public representations of memories. The book concludes with reflections on the significance of these practices for the cultural history of the twentieth century as a whole.

Memories of War

Memories of War PDF Author: Thomas A. Chambers
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801465672
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Even in the midst of the Civil War, its battlefields were being dedicated as hallowed ground. Today, those sites are among the most visited places in the United States. In contrast, the battlegrounds of the Revolutionary War had seemingly been forgotten in the aftermath of the conflict in which the nation forged its independence. Decades after the signing of the Constitution, the battlefields of Yorktown, Saratoga, Fort Moultrie, Ticonderoga, Guilford Courthouse, Kings Mountain, and Cowpens, among others, were unmarked except for crumbling forts and overgrown ramparts. Not until the late 1820s did Americans begin to recognize the importance of these places. In Memories of War, Thomas A. Chambers recounts America's rediscovery of its early national history through the rise of battlefield tourism in the first half of the nineteenth century. Travelers in this period, Chambers finds, wanted more than recitations of regimental movements when they visited battlefields; they desired experiences that evoked strong emotions and leant meaning to the bleached bones and decaying fortifications of a past age. Chambers traces this impulse through efforts to commemorate Braddock's Field and Ticonderoga, the cultivated landscapes masking the violent past of the Hudson River valley, the overgrown ramparts of Southern war sites, and the scenic vistas at War of 1812 battlefields along the Niagara River. Describing a progression from neglect to the Romantic embrace of the landscape and then to ritualized remembrance, Chambers brings his narrative up to the beginning of the Civil War, during and after which the memorialization of such sites became routine, assuming significant political and cultural power in the American imagination.

Monumental Conflicts

Monumental Conflicts PDF Author: Derek R. Mallett
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781351346719
Category : Collective memory
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
"Monumental Conflicts examines 20th century wars from the First World War to the First Gulf War, each chapter analyzing how public memory has evolved over time. The chapters raise fascinating questions about war and memory: Why are wars remembered as they are? What factors drive changes in public perception? What implications arise from remembering and commemorating a war or particular aspects of a war? What does public memory of a war say about us as a society? The volume is divided into three sections focusing on political evolution, negotiated memories of war, and national pride and covers international wars from Afghanistan to Vietnam and German deserter monuments to Vietnamese war tourism"--

The Politics of War Memory and Commemoration

The Politics of War Memory and Commemoration PDF Author: T.G. Ashplant
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134696574
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
War memory and commemoration have had increasingly high profiles in public and academic debates in recent years. This volume examines some of the social changes which have led to this development, among them the passing of the two World Wars from survivor into cultural memory. Focusing on the politics of war memory and commemoration, the book illuminates the struggle to install particular memories at the centre of a cultural world, and offers an extensive argument about how the politics of commemoration practices should be understood.

Remaking America

Remaking America PDF Author: John E. Bodnar
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691034958
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
In a compelling inquiry into public events ranging from the building of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial through ethnic community fairs to pioneer celebrations, John Bodnar explores the stories, ideas, and symbols behind American commemorations over the last century. Such forms of historical consciousness, he argues, do not necessarily preserve the past but rather address serious political matters in the present.--Publisher description.

Commemorating War

Commemorating War PDF Author: Graham Dawson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351527649
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
War memory and commemoration have had increasingly high profiles in public and academic debates in recent years. This volume examines some of the social changes that have led to this development, among them the passing of the two world wars from survivor into cultural memory. Focusing on the politics of war memory and commemoration, the book illuminates the struggle to install particular memories at the center of a cultural world, and offers an extensive argument about how the politics of commemoration practices should be understood. Commemorating War analyzes a range of forms of remembrance, from public commemorations orchestrated by nation-states to personal testimonies of war survivors; and from cultural memories of war represented in films, plays and novels to investigations of wartime atrocities in courts of human rights. It presents a wide range of international case studies, encompassing lesser-known national histories and wars beyond the well-trodden terrain of Vietnam and the two world wars in Europe. Emerging from this book is an important critique of both "state-centered" approaches to war memory and those that regard commemoration primarily as a human response to loss and grief. Offering a wealth of empirical research material, this book will be important for cultural and oral historians, sociologists, researchers in international relations and human rights, and anybody with an interest in the cultural construction of memory in contemporary society.

Places of Public Memory

Places of Public Memory PDF Author: Greg Dickinson
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817356134
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Though we live in a time when memory seems to be losing its hold on communities, memory remains central to personal, communal, and national identities. And although popular and public discourses from speeches to films invite a shared sense of the past, official sites of memory such as memorials, museums, and battlefields embody unique rhetorical principles. Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials is a sustained and rigorous consideration of the intersections of memory, place, and rhetoric. From the mnemonic systems inscribed upon ancient architecture to the roadside acci

Monumental Conflicts

Monumental Conflicts PDF Author: Derek R. Mallett
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781351346696
Category : Collective memory
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
"Monumental Conflicts examines 20th century wars from the First World War to the First Gulf War, each chapter analyzing how public memory has evolved over time. The chapters raise fascinating questions about war and memory: Why are wars remembered as they are? What factors drive changes in public perception? What implications arise from remembering and commemorating a war or particular aspects of a war? What does public memory of a war say about us as a society? The volume is divided into three sections focusing on political evolution, negotiated memories of war, and national pride and covers international wars from Afghanistan to Vietnam and German deserter monuments to Vietnamese war tourism"--

Fort Pillow, a Civil War Massacre, and Public Memory

Fort Pillow, a Civil War Massacre, and Public Memory PDF Author: John Cimprich
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807139181
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
At the now-peaceful spot of Tennessee's Fort Pillow State Historic Area, a horrific incident in the nation's bloodiest war occurred on April 12, 1864. Just as a high bluff in the park offers visitors a panoramic view of the Mississippi River, John Cimprich's absorbing book affords readers a new vantage on the American Civil War as viewed through the lens of the Confederate massacre of unionist and black Federal soldiers at Fort Pillow. Cimprich covers the entire history of Fort Pillow, including its construction by Confederates, its capture and occupation by federals, the massacre, and ongoing debates surrounding that affair. He sets the scene for the carnage by describing the social conflicts in federally occupied areas between secessionists and unionists as well as between blacks and whites. In a careful reconstruction of the assault itself, Cimprich balances vivid firsthand reports with a judicious narrative and analysis of events. He shows how Major General Nathan B. Forrest attacked the garrison with a force outnumbering the Federals roughly 1,500 to 600, and a breakdown of Confederate discipline resulted. The 65 percent death toll for black unionists was approximately twice that for white unionists, and Cimprich concludes that racism was at the heart of the Fort Pillow massacre. Fort Pillow, a Civil War Massacre, and Public Memory serves as a case study for several major themes of the Civil War: the great impact of military experience on campaigns, the hardships of military life, and the trend toward a more ruthless conduct of war. The first book to treat the fort's history in full, it provides a valuable perspective on the massacre and, through it, on the war and the world in which it occurred.