Back to Peace: Reconciliation and Retribution in the Postwar PeriodAránzazu Usandizaga, Andrew Monnickendam University of Notre Dame Press, 2007 - 312 pages Scholars have rarely studied a society's return to peace as a cultural category, as a formative experience common to many lives at any time in history. This collection of original essays by historians and literary critics explores the complex and difficult question of how a culture does, in fact, "return to peace" after a war. Combining analyses of both literary texts and historical sources, the contributors focus on the cultural, political, and personal implications of returning to peace. The volume begins with an introductory essay by its editors, arguing for the need to consider "back to peace" as a significant phenomenon, not just a brief step between war and peace. The first section of the volume, "Return of the Combatant," begins with an essay describing how soldiers in the trenches have imagined what civilian life would be like. This, and the four other essays--on F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night, on Japanese POWs, on the return from World War II, and from Vietnam--illustrate how violence, social ostracism, and general bewilderment of soldiers follow them home from war. The five essays in the second section analyze literary texts to reveal the fate of civilians in postwar situations: England and the United States after their respective Civil Wars, Anglo-Indian relations, Germans in postwar Britain, and contemporary Vietnamese American writers. Recurrent themes are clashes of culture, social tensions, and displacement. The four essays in the third section focus on the conflicted nature of the "back to peace" experience in the work of H.D. and Gertrude Stein, in women's writing on the Spanish Civil War, in the stories of war brides, and in the work of Marguerite Duras. These essays demonstrate how literary and historical texts deepen our understanding of the return to peace after war. |
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... fighting a war seems to have equally destructive consequences for the victors and the vanquished . Though the essays provide examples and models from very different con- texts , both historical and fictional , the conclusions they reach ...
... fighting for reactionary causes is exchanged for a temporary foray into stockbroking — an occupational shift that requires him to change from an outlandish suit , designed by the Polish court tailor , “ of a cut and pattern fantastic ...
... fighting for a new order . We are fighting for a world in which America can chart her future progress as a projection of the curve which her history has already plotted " ( 3 ) . The litera- ture of 1945 to 1951 plots just this curve ...
Table des matières
The Problematic Return to Peace | 1 |
PART TWO RECONCILIATION | 8 |
The PostWorld War I Era | 19 |
Droits d'auteur | |
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Back to Peace: Reconciliation and Retribution in the Postwar Period Aránzazu Usandizaga,Andrew Monnickendam Affichage d'extraits - 2007 |