Traumatic Defeat

Traumatic Defeat PDF Author: Patrick Gallagher
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700626441
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
War breeds myths, especially those made up by the vanquished to explain or soften their loss. Occasionally the myths of the defeated center on prisoners of war (POWs) and those missing in action (MIAs) to justify the lost struggle, mute national guilt, and sometimes even reject the reality of defeat itself. Traumatic Defeat takes a close, comparative look at two cases of this kind of mythmaking—in West Germany in the wake of World War II and in the United States after the Vietnam War. The book examines a specific case of mythmaking that revolves around the ambiguity of missing men and the trauma resulting from their unresolved fates. The “secret camp myth,” so called for the covert facilities where the missing supposedly survive, shared certain features in postwar Germany and America. Both nations suffered extreme trauma and struggled to find redemptive elements in their wartime experiences; both focused on POWs and MIAs to minimize their guilt and recast themselves as victims of wars they had started. Author Patrick Gallagher examines the similarities between West Germany’s myth aimed at men lost in the Soviet Union and America’s myth directed at those missing in Southeast Asia. The differences, however, are instructive, particularly the longevity of the American myth involving a few thousand soldiers compared with the relative short life of the more plausible German version involving millions. In search of the nature and meaning of these myths, Gallagher takes us into the wars themselves, the circumstances in which soldiers went missing, and the manner in which each nation framed its losses according to its own political, ideological, and historical needs. Traumatic Defeat, the first in-depth comparative study of this phenomenon, reveals how myths conjured in the trauma of military defeat can distort and dominate national conversations on the history of warfare, aftermath, and loss.

Traumatic Defeat

Traumatic Defeat PDF Author: Patrick Gallagher
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700626441
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Get Book Here

Book Description
War breeds myths, especially those made up by the vanquished to explain or soften their loss. Occasionally the myths of the defeated center on prisoners of war (POWs) and those missing in action (MIAs) to justify the lost struggle, mute national guilt, and sometimes even reject the reality of defeat itself. Traumatic Defeat takes a close, comparative look at two cases of this kind of mythmaking—in West Germany in the wake of World War II and in the United States after the Vietnam War. The book examines a specific case of mythmaking that revolves around the ambiguity of missing men and the trauma resulting from their unresolved fates. The “secret camp myth,” so called for the covert facilities where the missing supposedly survive, shared certain features in postwar Germany and America. Both nations suffered extreme trauma and struggled to find redemptive elements in their wartime experiences; both focused on POWs and MIAs to minimize their guilt and recast themselves as victims of wars they had started. Author Patrick Gallagher examines the similarities between West Germany’s myth aimed at men lost in the Soviet Union and America’s myth directed at those missing in Southeast Asia. The differences, however, are instructive, particularly the longevity of the American myth involving a few thousand soldiers compared with the relative short life of the more plausible German version involving millions. In search of the nature and meaning of these myths, Gallagher takes us into the wars themselves, the circumstances in which soldiers went missing, and the manner in which each nation framed its losses according to its own political, ideological, and historical needs. Traumatic Defeat, the first in-depth comparative study of this phenomenon, reveals how myths conjured in the trauma of military defeat can distort and dominate national conversations on the history of warfare, aftermath, and loss.

The Culture of Defeat

The Culture of Defeat PDF Author: Wolfgang Schivelbusch
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466851171
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 427

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Book Description
A fascinating look at history's losers-the myths they create to cope with defeat and the steps they take never to be vanquished again History may be written by the victors, Wolfgang Schivelbusch argues in his brilliant and provocative book, but the losers often have the final word. Focusing on three seminal cases of modern warfare-the South after the Civil War, France in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War, and Germany following World War I-Schivelbusch reveals the complex psychological and cultural reactions of vanquished nations to the experience of military defeat. Drawing on responses from every level of society, Schivelbusch shows how conquered societies question the foundations of their identities and strive to emulate the victors: the South to become a "better North," the French to militarize their schools on the Prussian model, the Germans to adopt all things American. He charts the losers' paradoxical equation of military failure with cultural superiority as they generate myths to glorify their pasts and explain their losses: the nostalgic "plantation legend" after the fall of the Confederacy; the cult of Joan of Arc in vanquished France; the fiction of the stab in the back by "foreign" elements in postwar Germany. From cathartic epidemics of "dance madness" to the revolutions that so often follow battlefield humiliation, Schivelbusch finds remarkable similarities across cultures. Eloquently and vibrantly told, The Culture of Defeat is a tour de force that opens new territory for historical inquiry.

The Long Defeat

The Long Defeat PDF Author: Akiko Hashimoto
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190239158
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
In The Long Defeat, Akiko Hashimoto explores the stakes of war memory in Japan after its catastrophic defeat in World War II, showing how and why defeat has become an indelible part of national collective life, especially in recent decades. Divisive war memories lie at the root of the contentious politics surrounding Japan's pacifist constitution and remilitarization, and fuel the escalating frictions in East Asia known collectively as Japan's "history problem." Drawing on ethnography, interviews, and a wealth of popular memory data, this book identifies three preoccupations - national belonging, healing, and justice - in Japan's discourses of defeat. Hashimoto uncovers the key war memory narratives that are shaping Japan's choices - nationalism, pacifism, or reconciliation - for addressing the rising international tensions and finally overcoming its dark history.

Defeat, Trauma, Lesson: Israel Between Life and Extinction

Defeat, Trauma, Lesson: Israel Between Life and Extinction PDF Author: Raphael Israeli
Publisher: Strategic Book Publishing & Rights Agency
ISBN: 1631350137
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
History books are usually written by victors, while the defeated write poetry and words of nostalgia hoping for better days. This volume takes major defeats in Jewish history and tries to describe what happens to a defeated nation, and how in the specific case of Israel and the Jews, the trauma of defeat engenders hope and forces the survivors to learn lessons for the future. The destruction of the two Jewish temples in antiquity, the Holocaust, and the 1973 War serve as case studies to illustrate the problematic. National grief as a result of disasters is a process of recuperation. Drawing lessons learned from the event will help the nation come out of trauma. Survivors commemorating the dead also help that process.

Defeated Masculinity

Defeated Masculinity PDF Author: Raya Morag
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9789052014692
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
The burgeoning field of trauma and cinema is an exciting development within contemporary trauma studies. The author of this book describes the complex relationship between cinema and the trauma of defeat in war. An asymmetric and non-binary comparison of two test cases, post-World War II New German Cinema and post-Vietnam War American cinema, illuminates the indirect and intriguing ways these societies have dealt with the enormous psycho-cultural difficulty of acknowledging their defeat and understanding its manifold meanings. This book draws on psychoanalysis, masculinity studies, and corporeal feminism to explore the bodily experience of defeat. It examines themes and representations of body and sexuality to create a theoretical framework that reveals anew the link between defeated masculinity and nationalism. Building on an original analysis of such varied films as The Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket, The Tin Drum, and Paris Texas, the author suggests new criteria that highlight the characteristics of post-traumatic cinema.

How Finkelstein Broke the Trauma Bond, and Beat the Holocaust

How Finkelstein Broke the Trauma Bond, and Beat the Holocaust PDF Author: Lawrence Swaim
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1785350218
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 670

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Book Description
Following on from the first two books in his 'Genesis Trilogy', Lawrence Swaim tells the amazing stories of people who broke the trauma bond, and created new lives for themselves. Including, among others: Norman Finkelstein (whose parents were both Holocaust survivors) who broke free from the inter-generational trauma in his family system by exposing extensive corruption in his community--and in American society--and by working for social justice in the Middle East; Eric Lomax, a former British soldier in the far east, who broke free from his haunting traumatic memories by meeting and reconciling with the Japanese man who had tortured him fifty years before, with the help of his brave and insightful wife; Gerry Adams who, together with his IRA and Sinn Fein comrades, broke free of the trauma of Northern Ireland's civil war, finally redeeming himself by questioning some of his own assumptions and then dedicating himself to achieving peace in the Good Friday (Peace) Agreement of 1998. This is a definitive book about personal struggle against traumatic memory, but also about how trauma bonding operates in society. It is the author's belief that unresolved feelings of psychological trauma are the wheelhouse of systemic evil, whether of the dictator, the demagogue or the criminal psychopath. It is by manipulating shared traumatic memories that tyrants control people, and get them to do terrible things they would never otherwise do.

Remembering Defeat

Remembering Defeat PDF Author: Andrew Wolpert
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801877199
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
In 404 b.c. the Peloponnesian War finally came to an end, when the Athenians, starved into submission, were forced to accept Sparta's terms of surrender. Shortly afterwards a group of thirty conspirators, with Spartan backing ("the Thirty"), overthrew the democracy and established a narrow oligarchy. Although the oligarchs were in power for only thirteen months, they killed more than 5 percent of the citizenry and terrorized the rest by confiscating the property of some and banishing many others. Despite this brutality, members of the democratic resistance movement that regained control of Athens came to terms with the oligarchs and agreed to an amnesty that protected collaborators from prosecution for all but the most severe crimes. The war and subsequent reconciliation of Athenian society has been a rich field for historians of ancient Greece. From a rhetorical and ideological standpoint, this period is unique because of the extraordinary lengths to which the Athenians went to maintain peace. In Remembering Defeat, Andrew Wolpert claims that the peace was "negotiated and constructed in civic discourse" and not imposed upon the populace. Rather than explaining why the reconciliation was successful, as a way of shedding light on changes in Athenian ideology Wolpert uses public speeches of the early fourth century to consider how the Athenians confronted the troubling memories of defeat and civil war, and how they explained to themselves an agreement that allowed the conspirators and their collaborators to go unpunished. Encompassing rhetorical analysis, trauma studies, and recent scholarship on identity, memory, and law, Wolpert's study sheds new light on a pivotal period in Athens' history.

Traumatic Reliving in History, Literature and Film

Traumatic Reliving in History, Literature and Film PDF Author: Rudolph Binion
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429923325
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
Traumatic Reliving in History, Literature, and Film explores an intriguing facet of human behavior never yet examined in its own right - an individual or a group may contrive, unawares, to repeat a half-forgotten traumatic experience in disguise. Such reliving has shaped major careers and large-scale events throughout history. Insight into it is therefore vital for understanding historic causation past and present. Traumatic Reliving has also proliferated in literature since antiquity and lately in film as well, indicating its tacit acceptance as a piece of life by the reading and movie-going public. This book examines the evidence of history, literature, and film on how this irrational behavioral mechanism works.

Cult of Defeat in Mexico’s Historical Fiction

Cult of Defeat in Mexico’s Historical Fiction PDF Author: B. Price
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781137008473
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Cult of Defeat in Mexico's Historical Fiction: Failure, Trauma, and Loss examines recent Mexican historical novels that highlight the mistakes of the nineteenth century for the purpose of responding to present crises.

Retraumatization

Retraumatization PDF Author: Melanie P. Duckworth
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135237328
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 477

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Book Description
Exposure to potentially traumatic events puts individuals at risk for developing a variety of psychological disorders; the complexities involved in treating them are numerous and have serious repercussions. How should diagnostic criteria be defined? How can we help a client who does not present with traditional PTSD symptoms? The mechanisms of human behavior need to be understood and treatment needs to be tested before we can move beyond traditional diagnostic criteria in designing and implementing treatment. No better guide than Retraumatization exists to fulfill these goals. The editors and contributors, all highly regarded experts, accomplish six objectives, to: define retraumatization outline the controversies related to it provide an overview of theoretical models present data related to the frequency of occurrence of different forms of trauma detail the most reliable strategies for assessment to provide an overview of treatments. Contained within is the most current information on prevention and treatment approaches for specific populations. All chapters are uniformly structured and address epidemiological data, clinical descriptions, assessment, diagnosis and prognosis, and prevention. It is an indispensible resource that expands readers’ knowledge and skills, and will encourage dialogue in a field that has many unanswered questions.