The Wars We Inherit: Military Life, Gender Violence, and Memory

How and why war and military culture have a traumatic impact on families and memory

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments  1. Introduction  2. Frank and Sally  3.The Hole Things Fall Into  4. Forgetting and Re-membering Interlude I: On the Event without a Witness  5. Re-membering II Interlude II : On Bearing Witness  6. If I Should Die before I Wake Interlude III : On Bearing Witness to the Process of Witnessing  7. The Pasts We Repeat I: Margaret Interlude IV : The Uncanny Return  8. The Pasts We Repeat II : Jenny  9. If Our First Language Is the Silence of Complicity, How Do We Learn to Speak?  10. The Work of War Interlude V: On the Violence of Nations in the Violence of Homes  11. Toward Re-membering a Future  12. The Work of Love  13. Conclusion  References  Web Sites  Index

About the Author :
Lori Amy is Associate Professor in the Department of Writing and Linguistics and Director of the Women's and Gender Studies Program at Georgia Southern University.

Review :
"By making the figure of the child central to the story of this book, the author charts out a dazzling path showing us how to draw lines of connection between the routine violence of a militarization and the routine if bewildering violence of the home. There is no easy way to describe how the voice of the child left me wounded even as I say how grateful I am for the author's courage and restraint." --Veena Das, Krieger-Eisenhower, Johns Hopkins University "The Wars We Inherit [is] a groundbreaking addition to the literatures on trauma and gendered violence. Amy makes a unique contribution to the current literature on traumatic memory and survival. She presents her arguments effectively, and her story, clearly and courageously told, is both riveting and painful."--Cassie Premo Steele, Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and author of We Heal from Memory "Amy breaks her silence to scrutinize family violence and teach methods for dealing with it...[S]he helps expose abuse she says is often hidden by the careful performances of both victims and abusers."- Publishers Weekly "I have never, ever read anything like Lori E. Amy's The Wars We Inherit...Although I could put it down after I started it, I found myself reading it again the morning after I first picked it up--at five a.m., when I couldn't sleep...This is an extraordinary book...it belongs in every public library. Book groups should read it. Even if you don't agree with what the author is saying, I think you would have to agree that she is trying to be thoughtful and fair while she is saying it." - Citizen Reader