Anzac Memories

Anzac Memories PDF Author: Alistair Thomson
Publisher: Monash University Publishing
ISBN: 1921867582
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
Anzac Memories was first published to acclaim in 1994, and has achieved international renown for its pioneering contribution to the study of war memory and mythology. Michael McKernan wrote that the book gave ‘as good a picture of the impact of the Great War on individuals and Australia as we are likely to get in this generation’, and Michael Roper concluded that ‘an immense achievement of this book is that it so clearly illuminates the historical processes that left men like my grandfather forever struggling to fashion myths which they could live by’. In this new edition Alistair Thomson explores how the Anzac legend has transformed over the past quarter century, how a ‘post-memory’ of the Great War creates new challenges and opportunities for making sense of the national past, and how veterans’ war memories can still challenge and complicate national mythologies. He returns to a family war history that he could not write about twenty years ago because of the stigma of war and mental illness, and he uses newly released Repatriation files to question his own earlier account of veterans’ post-war lives and memories and to think afresh about war and memory.

Anzac Memories

Anzac Memories PDF Author: Alistair Thomson
Publisher: Monash University Publishing
ISBN: 1921867582
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424

Get Book

Book Description
Anzac Memories was first published to acclaim in 1994, and has achieved international renown for its pioneering contribution to the study of war memory and mythology. Michael McKernan wrote that the book gave ‘as good a picture of the impact of the Great War on individuals and Australia as we are likely to get in this generation’, and Michael Roper concluded that ‘an immense achievement of this book is that it so clearly illuminates the historical processes that left men like my grandfather forever struggling to fashion myths which they could live by’. In this new edition Alistair Thomson explores how the Anzac legend has transformed over the past quarter century, how a ‘post-memory’ of the Great War creates new challenges and opportunities for making sense of the national past, and how veterans’ war memories can still challenge and complicate national mythologies. He returns to a family war history that he could not write about twenty years ago because of the stigma of war and mental illness, and he uses newly released Repatriation files to question his own earlier account of veterans’ post-war lives and memories and to think afresh about war and memory.

Anzac Memories

Anzac Memories PDF Author: Alistair Thomson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781921867590
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
What is taboo in any family or in any society is never fixed. And neither is that body of family information which everybody knows but no one talks about. Mental illness is one such subject, and it created a kind of fence around one central element of Thomson's work in the 1980s - his grandfather Hector's story. He has had the courage to take that fence down and use a range of sources to enter the no man's land of suffering and isolation which was a part of his grandfather's life, and perforce, that of his grandmother and the young child who became his father. When the first edition was in preparation, Alistair Thomson's father objected strenuously to any mention in the book of his father's (Alistair's grandfather's) mental illness; reluctantly Alistair agreed to leave out the subject. We can understand why the author's father, himself a soldier, felt so strongly. The images were too hard to bear for the man who was a young boy in the 1930s, living through very, very hard times with his disturbed father after his mother's death. Now, afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, but still able to read the text, he gave his son permission to tell the story. And it is a compelling and important one. From that story, we see the price families and in particular wives paid for the multiple wounds men brought home with them from war. What the second edition shows was the sheer force of survival in his grandmother Nell, who had not only the handful of two small boys to raise, but a damaged husband to support. And making her life harder still was that her husband's disability was very hard to define precisely....We know that the damage war does to families is generational; it doesn't stop when the shooting stops. It is passed on indirectly from father to son to grandson, and to the women with whom they live. By retelling his family's story, Alistair Thomson has been able to fashion a moving portrait of his family: his grandmother Nell, and after her death, of their sons, Al's dad and his uncle, still children, having cold mutton for Christmas dinner, alone with their father, a soldier of the Great War. -- Jay Winter, Yale University *** Anzac Memories was first published to acclaim in 1994 (by Oxford University Press) and has achieved international renown for its pioneering contribution to the study of war memory and mythology. War historian Michael McKernan wrote that the book gave "as good a picture of the impact of the Great War on individuals and Australia as we are likely to get in this generation," and historian Michael Roper concluded that "an immense achievement of this book is that it so clearly illuminates the historical processes that left men like my grandfather forever struggling to fashion myths which they could live by." In this second edition, author Alistair Thomson explores how the Anzac legend has been transformed over the past quarter century, how a 'post-memory' of World War I creates new challenges and opportunities for making sense of Australia's national past, and how veterans' war memories can still challenge and complicate national mythologies. Thomson returns to a family war history that he could not write about 20 years ago because of the stigma of war and mental illness, and he uses newly-released Repatriation files to question his own earlier account of veterans' post-war lives and memories and to think afresh about war and memory. (Series: Monash Classics)

Trauma and the Memory of Politics

Trauma and the Memory of Politics PDF Author: Jenny Edkins
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521534208
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
In this interesting study, Jenny Edkins explores how we remember traumatic events such as wars, famines, genocides and terrorism, and questions the assumed role of commemorations as simply reinforcing state and nationhood. Taking examples from the World Wars, Vietnam, the Holocaust, Kosovo and September 11th, Edkins offers a thorough discussion of practices of memory such as memorials, museums, remembrance ceremonies, the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress and the act of bearing witness. She examines the implications of these commemorations in terms of language, political power, sovereignty and nationalism. She argues that some forms of remembering do not ignore the horror of what happened but rather use memory to promote change and to challenge the political systems that produced the violence of wars and genocides in the first place. This wide-ranging study embraces literature, history, politics and international relations, and makes a significant contribution to the study of memory.

Law’s Memories

Law’s Memories PDF Author: Matt Howard
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031193881
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
This book discusses the relationship between law and memory and explores the ways in which memory can be thought of as contributing to legal socialization and legal meaning-making. Against a backdrop of critical legal pluralism which examines the distributedness of law(s), this book introduces the notion of mnemonic legality. It emphasises memory as a resource of law rather than an object of law, on the basis of how it substantiates senses of belonging and comes to frame inclusions and exclusions from a national community on the basis of linear-trajectory and growth narratives of nationhood. Overall, it explores the sensorial and affective foundations of law, implicating memory and perceptions of belonging within this process of creating legality and legitimacy. By identifying how memory comes to shape and inform notions of law, it contributes to legal consciousness research and to important questions informing much socio-legal research.

Altered Memories of the Great War

Altered Memories of the Great War PDF Author: Mark David Sheftall
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 085771032X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
The experiences of World War I touched the lives of a generation but memories of this momentous experience vary enormously throughout the world. In Britain, there was a strong reaction against militarism but in the Dominion powers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand the response was very different. For these former colonial powers, the experience of war was largely accepted as a national rite of passage and their pride and respect for their soldiers' sacrifices found its focus in a powerful nationalist drive. How did a single, supposedly shared experience provoke such contrasting reactions? What does it reveal about earlier, pre-existing ideas of national identity? And how did the memory of war influence later ideas of self-determination and nationhood? "Altered Memories of the Great War" is the first book to compare the distinctive collective narratives that emerged within Britain and the Dominions in response to World War I. It powerfully illuminates the differences as well as the similarities between different memories of war and offers fascinating insights into what this reveals about developing concepts of national identity in the aftermath of World War I.

Anzac Journeys

Anzac Journeys PDF Author: Bruce Scates
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107020670
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Charts the history of pilgrimages to the battlefields and cemeteries of World War Two through surveys, interviews and fieldwork.

History, Memory and Public Life

History, Memory and Public Life PDF Author: Anna Maerker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351055569
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
History, Memory and Public Life introduces readers to key themes in the study of historical memory and its significance by considering the role of historical expertise and understanding in contemporary public reflection on the past. Divided into two parts, the book addresses both the theoretical and applied aspects of historical memory studies. ‘Approaches to history and memory‘ introduces key methodological and theoretical issues within the field, such as postcolonialism, sites of memory, myths of national origins, and questions raised by memorialisation and museum presentation. ‘Difficult pasts‘ looks at history and memory in practice through a range of case studies on contested, complex or traumatic memories, including the Northern Ireland Troubles, post-apartheid South Africa and the Holocaust. Examining the intersection between history and memory from a wide range of perspectives, and supported by guidance on further reading and online resources, this book is ideal for students of history as well as those working within the broad interdisciplinary field of memory studies.

The Oral History Reader

The Oral History Reader PDF Author: Robert Perks
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317371313
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 856

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Book Description
The Oral History Reader, now in its third edition, is a comprehensive, international anthology combining major, ‘classic’ articles with cutting-edge pieces on the theory, method and use of oral history. Twenty-seven new chapters introduce the most significant developments in oral history in the last decade to bring this invaluable text up to date, with new pieces on emotions and the senses, on crisis oral history, current thinking around traumatic memory, the impact of digital mobile technologies, and how oral history is being used in public contexts, with more international examples to draw in work from North and South America, Britain and Europe, Australasia, Asia and Africa. Arranged in five thematic sections, each with an introduction by the editors to contextualise the selection and review relevant literature, articles in this collection draw upon diverse oral history experiences to examine issues including: Key debates in the development of oral history over the past seventy years First hand reflections on interview practice, and issues posed by the interview relationship The nature of memory and its significance in oral history The practical and ethical issues surrounding the interpretation, presentation and public use of oral testimonies how oral history projects contribute to the study of the past and involve the wider community. The challenges and contributions of oral history projects committed to advocacy and empowerment With a revised and updated bibliography and useful contacts list, as well as a dedicated online resources page, this third edition of The Oral History Reader is the perfect tool for those encountering oral history for the first time, as well as for seasoned practitioners.

Japanese Army Stragglers and Memories of the War in Japan, 1950-75

Japanese Army Stragglers and Memories of the War in Japan, 1950-75 PDF Author: Beatrice Trefalt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134383436
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This book charts comprehensively the various discoveries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific of Japanese soldiers still fighting the Second World War many years after it had ended. It explores their return to Japan and their impact on the Japanese people, revealing changing attitudes to war veterans and war casualties' families, as well as the ambivalence of memories of the war.

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.