Haig and Kitchener in Twentieth-Century Britain
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A01=Stephen Heathorn
Armistice Day Ceremony
Author_Stephen Heathorn
Big Brother
British military history
Category=N
Category=NHB
Category=NHD
Category=NHTB
Category=NHW
collective memory studies
Conspiracy Tales
contested war remembrance narratives
death
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
field
film
front
Haig Commission
Haig's Diary
Haig’s Diary
heroic
heroic masculinity
Heroic Reputation
Horse Guards Parade
Imperial Career
IRA Activist
John Terraine
Kitchener Film
Kitchener Memorial
Kitchener Poster
Kitchener's Death
kitcheners
Kitchener’s Death
Literary Battles
lord
Lord Kitchener
memorial
Memorial Chapel
Military Revisionists
Post Cards
post-Second World War Decolonization
public commemoration
Publicity Trade
reputation
Royal Artillery Memorial
Sir Philip Sassoon
social construction of memory
visual culture analysis
Von Donop
western
Young Men
Product details
- ISBN 9780754669654
- Weight: 453g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 03 Apr 2013
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Lord Kitchener and Lord Haig are two monumental figures of the First World War. Their reputations, both in their lifetimes and after their deaths, have been attacked and defended, scrutinized and contested. They have been depicted in film, print and public memorials in Britain and the wider world, and new biographies of both men appear to this day. The material representations of Haig and Kitchener were shaped, used and manipulated for official and popular ends by a variety of groups at different times during the twentieth century. The purpose of this study is not to discover the real individual, nor to attack or defend their reputations, rather it is an exploration of how both men have been depicted since their deaths and to consider what this tells us about the nature and meaning of First World War commemoration. While Haig's representation was more contested before the Second World War than was Kitchener's, with several constituencies trying to fashion and use Haig's memory - the Government, the British Legion, ex-servicemen themselves, and bereaved families - it was probably less contested, but overwhelmingly more negative, than Kitchener's after the Second World War. The book sheds light on the notion of 'heroic' masculinity - questioning, in particular, the degree to which the image of the common soldier replaced that of the high commander in the popular imagination - and explores how the military heritage in the twentieth century came into collision with the culture of modernity. It also contributes to ongoing debates in British historiography and to the larger debates over the social construction of memory, the problematic relation between what is considered 'heritage' and 'history', and the need for historians to be sensitive and attentive to the interconnections between heritage and history and their contexts.
Stephen Heathorn is Professor of British History and Director of Graduate Studies of the Department of History at McMaster University, Canada. He is the author of For Home, Country and Race (University of Toronto Press, 2000) and more than two dozen academic articles on the history of nationalism, commemoration and heritage in Britain.
