The Construction of Memory in Interwar France

Download or read book The Construction of Memory in Interwar France written by Daniel J. Sherman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contrast between battlefield and home front, soldier and civilian was the basis for memory and collective gratitude. Postwar commemoration, however, also grew directly out of the long and agonized search for the remains of hundreds of thousands of missing soldiers, and the sometimes contentious debates over where to bury them. For this reason, the local monument, with its inscribed list of names and its functional resemblance to tombstones, emerged as the focal point of commemorative practice. Sherman traces every step in the process of monument building as he analyzes commemoration's competing goals--to pay tribute to the dead, to console the bereaved, and to incorporate mourners' individual memories into a larger political discourse."--Pub. description.