Remembering the First World War: (Remembering the Modern World)

Remembering the First World War brings together a group of international scholars to understand how and why the past quarter of a century has witnessed such an extraordinary increase in global popular and academic interest in the First World War, both as an event and in the ways it is remembered. The book discusses this phenomenon across three key areas. The first section looks at family history, genealogy and the First World War, seeking to understand the power of family history in shaping and reshaping remembrance of the War at the smallest levels, as well as popular media and the continuing role of the state and its agencies. The second part discusses practices of remembering and the more public forms of representation and negotiation through film, literature, museums, monuments and heritage sites, focusing on agency in representing and remembering war. The third section covers the return of the War and the increasing determination among individuals to acknowledge and participate in public rituals of remembrance with their own contemporary politics. What, for instance, does it mean to wear a poppy on armistice/remembrance day? How do symbols like this operate today? These chapters will investigate these aspects through a series of case studies. Placing remembrance of the First World War in its longer historical and broader transnational context and including illustrations and an afterword by Professor David Reynolds, this is the ideal book for all those interested in the history of the Great War and its aftermath.

Table of Contents:
Series editors’ foreword. Acknowledgements. List of figures. List of contributors. Introduction: Remembering the First World War today Bart Ziino Section 1. Family history, genealogy and the First World War 1. Great Grand-father, What Did You Do in the Great War? The Phenomenon of Conducting First World War Family History Research James Wallis 2. Family history and the Great War in Australia Carolyn Holbrook and Bart Ziino Section 2. Practices of remembering 3. Framing the Great War in Britain: Modern Mediated Memories Ross Wilson 4. Teaching and Remembrance in English secondary schools Ann-Marie Einhaus and Catriona Pennell 5.Museums, Architects and Artists on the Western Front: new commemoration for a new history? Annette Becker 6. Music and Remembrance: Britain and the First World War Peter Grant and Emma Hanna Section 3. The return of the War 7. ‘Now Russia Returns its History to Itself’: Russia Celebrates the Centenary of the First World War Karen Petrone 8. Çanakkale’s Children: The politics of remembering the Gallipoli campaign in contemporary Turkey Vedica Kant 9. Commemoration and the hazards of Irish politics Keith Jeffery 10. Little Flemish Heroes Tombstones: The Great War and Twenty-First Century Belgian Politics Karen Shelby 11. Between the Topos of a ‘Forgotten War’ and the Current Memory Boom. Remembering the First World War in Austria Sabine A. Haring Afterword: Remembering the First World War: an international perspective David Reynolds

Review :
"This is a most welcome collection of essays that illuminates the politics of memory over the Great War, the seminal cataclysmic event that continues to cast a shadow over contemporary societies. With contributions from a diverse group of scholars, this volume provides nuanced analysis of sites of collective memory in culture, politics, media and education. More importantly, it uncovers complex textures of individual and family memories that still shape how Western societies try to remember, and forget, this event one hundred years after its outbreak." Jason Crouthamel, Grand Valley State University, USA "This is a timely book that sheds critical light on the remembrance of the First World War in the run up to its centenary. A series of thoughtful essays, many from leading scholars in the field, highlight the incredible breadth of public memory work. Everything from genealogy and school curricula through to music and museums earn a rightful mention. Taken together, the essays go a long way in explaining why the First World War retains such an incredible global pull, even after one hundred years have passed." Tim Grady, University of Chester, UK