Remembering War, Short Review

Jay Winter's Remembering War is a rigorous, but interesting, examination of the collective remembrances of the Great War. This book is a far cry from most other works on World War I because it does not deal with battles, generals and politicians. Winter's main focus is on memory and remembrance. How was the war remembered? How were the participants, dead and living, memorialized? Winter argued that there have been many ways to remember the war and that it is remembered in differently among diverse groups.

Winter has drawn on 'traditional' and 'non-traditional' sources to construct a fascinating analysis of remembrance and memory. The most interesting source used by Winter is television. Television has been an important medium that has helped to influence how the Great War is remembered.

The down side of this book is that it is weighed down with theory at times. Unless the reader is familiar with postmodernist and literary theory, then he/she will may get lost from time to time.

From the publisher:

"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."