In search of the "authentic" experience of war, 1914-1917 -- Exhibiting for victory: travelling war photography displays, 1917-1920 -- Art exhibitions: a higher truth in aid of victory and for posterity -- Taming the monsters of war: exhibiting weapons and war trophies 1917-1920 -- Consolidations: creating national museums and narratives of war, 1920-1935 -- Museums, monuments, and memory: exhibiting war as part of national and imperial commemorative projects since 1925.
Summary:
"What does it mean to display war? Examining a range of different exhibitions in Britain, Canada, and Australia, Jennifer Wellington reveals complex imperial dynamics in the ways these countries developed diverging understandings of the First World War, despite their cultural, political, and institutional similarities. While in Britain a popular narrative developed of the conflict as a tragic rupture with the past, Australia and Canada came to see it as engendering national birth through violence. Narratives of the war's meaning were deliberately constructed by individuals and groups pursuing specific agendas: to win the war and immortalise it at the same time. Drawing on a range of documentary and visual material, this book analyses how narratives of mass violence changed over time. Emphasising the contingent development of national and imperial war museums, it illuminates the way they acted as spaces in which official, academic, and popular representations of this violent past intersect" Provided by publisher.
Series:
Studies in the social and cultural history of modern warfare
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.