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Chargement... The Vimy Trap: Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War (2016)par Ian McKay, Jamie Swift
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"The story of the bloody 1917 Battle of Vimy Ridge is, according to many of today's tellings, a heroic founding moment for Canada. This noble, birth-of-a-nation narrative is regularly applied to the Great War in general. Yet this mythical tale is rather new. "Vimyism"--Today's official story of glorious, martial patriotism--contrasts sharply with the complex ways in which veterans, artists, clerics, and even politicians who had supported the war interpreted its meaning over the decades. Was the Great War a futile imperial debacle? A proud, nation-building milestone? Contending Great War memories have helped to shape how later wars were imagined. The Vimy Trap provides a powerful probe of commemoration cultures. This subtle, fast-paced work of public history--combining scholarly insight with sharp-eyed journalism, and based on primary sources and school textbooks, battlefield visits and war art--explains both how and why peace and war remain contested terrain in ever-changing landscapes of Canadian memory."-- Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)940.431History and Geography Europe Europe Military History Of World War I Special campaigns and battlesClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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So when I saw this I was eager for better understanding. The first chapters laid out the argument, and then the rest of the book devolved into messy circuits through history, circling back and throwing in bits of stories and dropping names with not a thing to hang them on. I quickly became confused and had to give up.
A good editor could have fixed this, put together a more coherent argument and/or history of this time. At present it is almost unreadable.
It also falls into the sad trap of thinking that only men and generals have any importance in the creation of myths. I would LOVE to read how women were persuaded to send their sons to be perished. There’s a mention of the poor woman who lost five sons in the war and gosh, she got a medal. Made me nauseous, that. Did they support her in her old age? Did they support any of the returning soldiers?
Perhaps that is a foundation myth we should promote instead- the was we eventually managed to create a social safety net. In these times where that is at risk of being lost (it is already cut and bleeding), we could focus on our history of working together instead of gathering to kill people. Heaven knows we need a refocus. And fewer graves of people who think they are “fighting for Canada and democracy”. ( )