No Man's Land: Combat and Identity in World War 1

No Man's Land: Combat and Identity in World War 1

Based on the firsthand accounts of German, French, British, and American front-line soldiers, No Man's Land examines how the first modern, industrialized war transformed the character of the men who participated in it. Ancient myths about war eroded in the trenches, where the relentless monotony and impotence of the solder's life was interrupted only by unpredictable moments of annihilation. Professor Leed looks at how the traumatic experience of combat itself and the wholesale shattering of the conventions and ethical codes of normal social life turned ordinary civilians into 'liminal men', men living beyond the limits of the accepted and the expected. He uses the concept of liminality to illuminate the central features of the war experience: the separation from 'home': the experience of pollution, death, comradeship, and 'the uncanny': and the ambivalence of returning veterans about civilian society. In a final chapter Professor Leed assesses the long-term political impact of the front experience. He finds that the end of hostilities did not mean the end of the war experience as much as the beginning of a process by which that experience was framed, institutionalized, celebrated and relived in political action as well as in fiction.
Country USA
Brand Cambridge University Press
Manufacturer Cambridge University Press
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber 9780521285735
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780521285735
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	Cambridge University Press
Manufacturer	Cambridge University Press
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	9780521285735
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780521285735
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

No Man's Land: Combat and Identity in World War 1

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