Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I. Catastrophe and Consolation: 1. Homecomings: the return of the dead; 2. Communities in mourning; 3. Spiritualism and the 'Lost Generation'; 4. War memorials and the mourning process; Part II. Cultural Codes and Languages of Mourning: 5. Mythologies of war: films, popular religion, and the business of the sacred; 6. The apocalyptic imagination in art: from anticipation to allegory; 7. The apocalyptic imagination in war literature; 8. War poetry, romanticism, and the return of the sacred; 9. Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Promotional Information

This 'collective remembrance' of the Great War reassesses one of the critical episodes in twentieth-century cultural history.

Reviews

'No one interested in the broad impact of the First World War, or the cultural history of the twentieth century, can afford to neglect this book.' The Times Literary Supplement

'One seldom puts down a work of history with such a feeling of having penetrated to the bedrock of emotions that inspired a time that now seems very far away, very different, and very past.' The Journal of Modern History