War beyond Words
Languages of Remembrance from the Great War to the Present

Presents a panoramic history of transformations in our global imaginings of war from 1914 to the present.

Jay Winter (Author)

9781108466615, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 8 November 2018

314 pages, 80 colour illus.
22.7 x 15.3 x 1.8 cm, 0.5 kg

'… War Beyond Words provides a sweeping study of Western cultural memories of warfare, packed with references that provide a valuable starting point for any student of the subject.' Lizzie Oliver, Journal of Contemporary History

What we know of war is always mediated knowledge and feeling. We need lenses to filter out some of its blinding, terrifying light. These lenses are not fixed; they change over time, and Jay Winter's panoramic history of war and memory offers an unprecedented study of transformations in our imaginings of war, from 1914 to the present. He reveals the ways in which different creative arts have framed our meditations on war, from painting and sculpture to photography, film and poetry, and ultimately to silence, as a language of memory in its own right. He shows how these highly mediated images of war, in turn, circulate through language to constitute our 'cultural memory' of war. This is a major contribution to our understanding of the diverse ways in which men and women have wrestled with the intractable task of conveying what twentieth-century wars meant to them and mean to us.

Introduction
Part I. Vectors of Memory: 1. Configuring war
2. Photographing war
3. Filming war
4. Writing war
Part II. Frameworks of Memory: 5. Memory and the sacred: martyrdom in the twentieth century and beyond
6. The geometry of memory: horizontality and war memorials in the twentieth century and after
7. War beyond words: shell shock, silence, and memories of war
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Military history [HBW], 21st century history: from c 2000 - [HBLX], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD], Memorials, monuments [AMGD]