Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
Why does the Great War seem part of modern memory when its rituals of mourning and remembrance were traditional, romantic, even classical? In this highly original history of memory, David Williams shows how classic Great War literature, including work by Remarque, Owen, Sassoon, and Harrison, was symptomatic of a cultural crisis brought on by the advent of cinema. He argues that images from Geoffrey Malins' hugely popular war film The Battle of the Somme (1916) collapsed social, temporal, and spatial boundaries, giving film a new cultural legitimacy, while the appearance of writings based on cinematic forms of remembering marked a crucial transition from a verbal to a visual culture. By contrast, today's digital media are laying the ground for a return to Homeric memory, whether in History Television, the digital Memory Project, or the interactive war museum.
Of interest to historians, classicists, media and digital theorists, literary scholars, museologists, and archivists, Media, Memory, and the First World War is a comparative study that shows how the dominant mode of communication in a popular culture - from oral traditions to digital media - shapes the structure of memory within that culture.
"A fascinating interdisciplinary approach to the construction of memory of the Great World War in diverse media. Williams' work should prove valuable to university students and professional scholars engaged in the history of memory from a variety of approaches and fields. Williams admirably expands our source base beyond the traditionally studied Anglo-American war narrative and he provides an especially engaging analysis of lesser-known sites of Canadian memory. Williams' ideas point toward new directions and context of scholarship on memory. His study is most welcome, as it challenges us to expand our thinking about memory through more diverse media into the contemporary age." Jason Crouthamel, Grand Valley State University
"A brilliant book that deserves a large readership because it considers deep matters in an impressively intelligent way … This is a stunning work of imagination at so many levels - the reader is challenged by its speculative links and suggestions." Winnipeg Free Press