A Darkling Plain
Stories of Conflict and Humanity during War

A Darkling Plain fills a scholarly void by asking how people maintain or reclaim their humanity during war.

Kristen Renwick Monroe (Author), Chloe Lampros-Monroe (With), Jonah Pellecchia (With)

9781107690172, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 October 2014

321 pages
22.8 x 15.3 x 1.5 cm, 0.45 kg

'With her characteristic wisdom, empathy, and superb interviewing skills, Kristen Monroe has written a book that everyone connected with wars should read. She has an unusual talent for identifying questions as difficult as they are important, and the book provides not the answer - which is not possible - but many answers that resonate widely and deeply. This is a moving and provocative book.' Jennifer L. Hochschild, Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University

How do people maintain their humanity during wars? Despite its importance, this question receives scant scholarly attention, perhaps because war is overwhelming. The generally accepted belief is that wars bring out the worst in us, pitting one against another. 'War is hell', William Tecumseh Sherman famously noted, and even 'just' wars are massively destructive and inhumane. Since ethics is concerned with discovering what takes us to a morally superior place, one conducive to betterment and happiness - studying what helps people survive wartime trauma thus becomes an extremely valuable enterprise. A Darkling Plain fills an important scholarly void, analyzing wartime stories that reveal much about our capacity to process trauma, heal wounds, reclaim lost spirits, and derive meaning and purpose from the most horrific of personal events.

Part I: 1. War is hell. War is all hell. Scholarly literature on the unspeakable: literature, methodology, and data
Part II. War and Humanity in World War II: 2. If something's going to get you, it'll get you. Frank, American solider in the South Pacific
3. Prejudice, bigotry, and hatred. Love and luck. Laura, Holocaust survivor on Schindler's list
4. Everything went downhill after that. Gunther, refugee and displaced person with an SS father
5. In the middle of the hailstorm, one doesn't fear for one's own life. The red princess and the July 20 Plot to kill Hitler
6. Belonging to something. Herb, Austrian Jewish refugee from the Third Reich
7. Hard to adjust after all that. Grace, interned Japanese American teenager
Part III. Other Voices, Other Wars: From Indochina to Iraq: 8. Best forget about Vietnam. Christopher, Vietnam
9. For my family. Tuan, South Vietnam
10. Bad memory, bad feeling. Sara on the Khmer Rouge
11. Someone loving me. Kimberly on the Khmer Rouge
12. Collateral damage and the greater good. Doc and the Iraq War
13. Easily the worst experience of my life. Sebastian on the Iraq War
Part IV. Civil Wars and Genocides, Dictators and Domestic Oppressors: 14. Grandfather had his head cut off. Rose and the Armenian genocide
15. A resistance to keep you alive. Ng?g? on the Mau Mau, anti-colonialism, and homegrown dictators
16. Stuck in the mud in the middle of a civil war. Fabiola on the Nicaraguan Civil War
17. Too much was seen. Marie on the Lebanese Civil War
18. Care about other people. Okello and Idi Amin's Uganda
19. People suffered great loss. Reza and Afghanistan under the Soviets
20. Religion mixed with politics creates bad things. Leyla and the Islamic Republic of Iran
Part V. Guarding One's Humanity during Wars and Genocide: 21. The fundamental things apply
Conclusion: the enormity of it all.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS]