Sites of memory, sites of mourning : the Great War in European cultural history /

Winter has devoted his professional career to studying WW I and has written or edited four well-received volumes on its sociopolitical aspects. In this book, he analyzes the war's cultural legacy. Sites of Memory is an engaging, even compelling, exploration of the comparative impact of "mass death" on European culture. One of the book's strengths lies in Winter's methodological approach; he compares the processes of bereavement and commemoration among Britons, French, and Germans, and presents the cultural significance of WW I as a combination of the traditional and modern, rather than as a "great divide" between the two cultures. Winter also uses poignant episodes on spiritualism, commemoration, and the visual arts to demonstrate the ruptures and continuities in the healing process. Although the theme of commemoration and national identity has been explored recently in Commemorations, ed. by John Gillis (1994), and in George Mosse's Fallen Soldiers (CH, Oct'90), Winter's is a more nuanced study of the meaning of death and consolation. An erudite piece of scholarship that will certainly set the standard for future studies of its kind, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the cultural history of the Great War. General readers; upper-division undergraduates and above. M. Shevin-Coetzee George Washington University