Best regards, Andrew Stewart
Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: April 29, 2021 at 8:37:50 AM EDT > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-War]: Krause on Bontrager, 'Death at the Edges of > Empire: Fallen Soldiers, Cultural Memory, and the Making of an American > Nation, 1863-1921' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Shannon Bontrager. Death at the Edges of Empire: Fallen Soldiers, > Cultural Memory, and the Making of an American Nation, 1863-1921. > Studies in War, Society, and the Military Series. Lincoln University > of Nebraska Press, 2020. Illustrations. 432 pp. $60.00 (e-book), > ISBN 978-1-4962-1907-7; $60.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4962-0184-3. > > Reviewed by Tristan Krause (Texas A&M) > Published on H-War (April, 2021) > Commissioned by Margaret Sankey > > In Death at the Edges of Empire: Fallen Soldiers, Cultural Memory, > and the Making of an American Nation, 1863-1921, Shannon Bontrager > deftly traces the dynamic and often contentious American cultural > memory derived from commemorating fallen military from the Civil War > through the end of World War I. Rather than a history of American > conflicts, Death at the Edges of Empire is a detailed analysis of how > the US government, middle-class citizens, and American corporations > collaborated to construct and maintain specific memories of the dead. > Bontrager is quick to point out that the meanings of past sacrifice > were not static but malleable, meaning that the shifting "politics of > race, class, and gender shaped the rituals of commemoration and > cultural memory" (p. 4). This curated and constantly evolving nature > of American cultural memory is a central theme in Bontrager's work, > and he dexterously follows how the commemoration of war dead > facilitated these memories throughout the late nineteenth and early > twentieth centuries. > > Using the models of Jan Assmann and other historians of memory, > Bontrager organizes his work along three intertwined memory > techniques: storage, retrieval, and communication. The author begins > his narrative with President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, > defining what he dubs "Lincoln's promise to the dead and obligation > for the living" (p. 19). This promise urged Americans to remember > fallen soldiers and, Bontrager argues, created a nascent cultural > memory that bound the Union together over shared sacrifice and ideals > of liberty. But Lincoln's promise would not hold its original form > throughout the following decades, as Bontrager goes on to document > the "cooling" process of memories, illustrating how certain aspects > of past conflicts were removed from or added to American cultural > memory to serve several different purposes in the present. > > Chapters 1-3 examine the relationship between space and memory > storage, including the dueling foundational memories present in > adjacent Union and Confederate cemeteries, the burial of soldiers on > America's expanding frontier, and the commemoration of soldiers who > died during the Spanish-American War. Building off scholars like Drew > Gilpin Faust and William Blair, Bontrager states that "federal > authorities and middle-class Americans built a network of sacred > spaces" to explain the losses of the American Civil War, yet the > memories stored within were ever susceptible to change and excluded > many (p. 37). As an example, the memories of the Civil War as a war > for liberty and emancipation embedded in Lincoln's original promise > soon shifted to a narrative of national preservation, allowing > ex-Confederates to participate in American cultural memory while > freezing out the memories of Black Americans. Driven by imperial > expansion and the need for sectional reunification, national > cemeteries began including Confederate dead and southern > interpretations of the war. As a result, Bontrager argues, "symbols > of the old Confederacy gained storage space while symbols of freedmen > and emancipation lost space in the cultural memory of > post-Reconstruction Americans" (p. 105). > > The following two chapters focus on the role of war dead in shaping > the memory of American imperial expansion, specifically covering the > retrieval and (re)sinking of the USS_ Maine _and the recovery of > physical remains from the Philippines. Both the sunken vessel and > bodies of American service members provided opportunities to retrieve > stored cultural memory, which "became a crucial act through which > Americans claimed rites of citizenship and understood U.S. identity > in the world" (p. 120). Bontrager's work expertly highlights an > inherent juxtaposition in American cultural memory at the turn of the > century, as commemorative practices shrouded in republican virtues > partially obscured the imperialistic nature of US foreign policy. > > The last section of the book includes chapters that highlight various > icons and platforms that communicated a changing cultural memory as > the United States entered World War I and attempted to determine its > role on the global stage. At times, the framework of empire here > feels a bit forced, like when the wartime letters of North Carolina > volunteer Arthur Bluethenthal "underscored his imperialistic > behavior" (p. 211). There is an unexpected regional emphasis in this > segment as well, as the next chapter again focuses on North Carolina, > contending that the state's World War I archival collection broadcast > a memory of southern redemption without effectively connecting it to > other states in the South. That said, the last chapter featuring > President Warren Harding's use of aural technology during the > dedication ceremony for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in 1921 is > particularly vivid and well written, as Bontrager establishes how > Harding "infused republican traditions onto the Tomb of the Unknown > Soldier to help join fracturing cultural memories together again" (p. > 279). This analysis remains relevant today, as President Joe Biden > and previous heads of state recently broadcast another message of > unity from the same location using similar memories of past sacrifice > and national service. > > _Death at the Edges of Empire _is an insightful new addition into the > historiography on how Americans construct cultural memories from > their military dead and how these memories are susceptible to change. > Some of the book's real value comes in connecting the scholarship on > the perceptions of dying in mid-nineteenth-century America to the > well-established body of literature on the European customs of death > and mourning in the wake of World War I. Bontrager's ambitious > geographical and temporal scope also incorporates analysis of places > and events usually outside the realm of study, such as frontier > burials in Alaska or American ambulance drivers in Serbia. Overall, > Bontrager's research offers a vibrant yet cautionary history of how > Americans repeatedly adjusted their memories of the dead in ways that > suited the living. > > Citation: Tristan Krause. Review of Bontrager, Shannon, _Death at the > Edges of Empire: Fallen Soldiers, Cultural Memory, and the Making of > an American Nation, 1863-1921_. H-War, H-Net Reviews. April, 2021. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=56002 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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