Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The modern idea that the Great War was regarded as a futile waste of life by British society in the disillusioned 1920s and 1930s is here called into question by Mark Connelly. Through a detailed local study of a district containing a wide variety of religious, economic and social variations, he shows how both the survivors and the bereaved came to terms with the losses and implications of the Great War. His study illustrates the ways in which communities as diverse as the Irish Catholics of Wapping, the Jews of Stepney and the Presbyterian ex-patriate Scots of Ilford, thanks to the actions of the local agents of authority and influence - clergymen, rabbis, councillors, teachers and employers - shaped the memory of their dead and created a very definite history of the war. Close focus on the planning of, fund-raising for, and erection of war memorials expands to a wider examination of how those memorials became a focus for a continuing need to remember, particularly each year on Armistice Day. Mark Connelly is Professor of Modern British Military History, University of Kent.
Synopsis
This book seeks to question the modern idea that the Great War was regarded as a futile waste of life by British society in the disillusioned twenties and thirties. Through a detailed study of the City and East London localities of widely varying religious, economic and social complexion, it shows how both the survivors and the bereaved came to terms with the losses and implications of the Great War and how communities as diverse as the Irish Catholics of Wapping, the Jews of Stepney and the Presbyterian ex-patriate Scots of Ilford shaped the memory of their dead and created a very definite history of the war. The work concentrates on the planning of, fund-raising for, and erection of war memorials and then goes on to show how those memorials became a focus for a continuing need to remember, particularly each year on Armistice Day. The factors that influenced the nature of these memorials, the iconographic symbols they contained and the associated rituals are analysed: class, religion, political traditions, social and economic influences. The book seeks to show how far the traditional bonds of community in East London were applied to the scale of human loss; how it was explained and made into a comprehensible phenomenon thanks to the actions of the local agents of authority and influence - clergymen, rabbis, councillors, teachers and employers. A detailed case study of the effect of war on a distinct area, it contextualises and in many cases challenges received opinion.
Synopsis
This detailed case study of a part of London shows how both the survivors and the bereaved sought to come to terms with the losses and implications of the Great War.
The modern idea that the Great War was regarded as a futile waste of life by British society in the disillusioned 1920s and 1930s is here called into question by Mark Connelly. Through a detailed local study of a district containing a wide variety of religious, economic and social variations, he shows how both the survivors and the bereaved came to terms with the losses and implications of the Great War. His study illustrates the ways in which communitiesas diverse as the Irish Catholics of Wapping, the Jews of Stepney and the Presbyterian ex-patriate Scots of Ilford, thanks to the actions of the local agents of authority and influence - clergymen, rabbis, councillors, teachers and employers - shaped the memory of their dead and created a very definite history of the war. Close focus on the planning of, fund-raising for, and erection of war memorials expands to a wider examination of how those memorials became a focus for a continuing need to remember, particularly each year on Armistice Day.
Mark Connelly is Professor of Modern British Military History, University of Kent.