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The culture of defeat : on national trauma, mourning, and recovery / Wolfgang Schivelbusch ; translated by Jefferson Chase.
LIBRA E468.9 .S3513 2003
Available from offsite location
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Schivelbusch, Wolfgang, 1941-2023.
- Standardized Title:
- Kultur der Niederlage. English
- Language:
- English
- German
- Subjects (All):
- Military history, Modern.
- National characteristics.
- Defeat (Psychology).
- Psychological aspects.
- History.
- United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Psychological aspects.
- United States.
- Southern States--Social conditions--1865-1945.
- Southern States.
- Social conditions.
- Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871--Psychological aspects.
- Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871.
- France--Social conditions--19th century.
- France.
- World War, 1914-1918--Psychological aspects.
- World War, 1914-1918.
- World War, 1914-1918--Germany.
- Germany--Social conditions--1918-1933.
- Germany.
- Defeat (Psychology)--Case studies.
- National characteristics--Case studies.
- Military history, Modern--Case studies.
- Genre:
- Case studies.
- Physical Description:
- 403 pages ; 25 cm
- Edition:
- First American edition.
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Metropolitan Books, 2003.
- Summary:
- History May be Written by the Victors, Wolfgang Schivelbusch argues in his brilliant and provocative new book, but the losers often have the final word. Focusing on three seminal cases of defeat -- the South after the Civil War, France in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War, and Germany following World War I -- Schivelbusch reveals the complex psychological and cultural responses of vanquished nations to the experience of military defeat.
- Drawing on reactions from every level of society, Schivelbusch investigates the sixty-year period in which the world moved from regional to global conflagration, and from gentlemanly conduct of war to total mutual destruction. He shows how conquered societies question the foundations of their identities and strive to emulate the victors: the South to become a "better North," the French to militarize their schools on the Prussian model, the Germans to adopt all things American. He charts the losers' paradoxical equation of military failure with cultural superiority as they generate myths to glorify their pasts and explain their losses: the nostalgic "plantation legend" after the collapse of the Confederacy, the new cult of Joan of Arc in vanquished France, the fiction of the stab in the back by "foreign" elements in postwar Germany. From cathartic epidemics of "dance-madness" to the revolutions that so often follow battlefield humiliation, Schivelbusch finds remarkable similarities across cultures. Eloquently and vibrantly written, The Culture of Defeat is a tour de force that opens new territory for historical inquiry.
- Contents:
- Introduction: On Being Defeated 1
- 1 The American South 37
- 2 France 103
- 3 Germany 189
- Epilogue: On Falling 289.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [295]-391) and index.
- ISBN:
- 0805044213
- OCLC:
- 50166603
- Online:
- Publisher description
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