Current conflict in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza highlights the terrible price that is paid by civilians in war. This book focuses on the myth of the Blitz as experienced today, especially in the context of civilian deaths. It contends that the substantial civilian toll of the bombing of British cities in WWII has become marginalised by the evolution, political deployment, and resonance of the myth of the Blitz. This is achieved through interdisciplinary methodologies including historiography, the archaeology of remembrance, and agency analysis. Research among remembrance activists and communities exposes the contesting of a simplifying myth by acts of commemoration, the exposure of private memory in public form, and an archaeology of civilian remembrance.
WWII Bombing of British Cities and Contested Remembrance: Civilian experience and its commemoration since 1945
Current conflict in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza highlights the terrible price that is paid by civilians in war. This book focuses on the myth of the Blitz as experienced today, especially in the context of civilian deaths. It contends that the substantial civilian toll of the bombing of British cities in WWII has become marginalised by the evolution, political deployment, and resonance of the myth of the Blitz. This is achieved through interdisciplinary methodologies including historiography, the archaeology of remembrance, and agency analysis. Research among remembrance activists and communities exposes the contesting of a simplifying myth by acts of commemoration, the exposure of private memory in public form, and an archaeology of civilian remembrance.