Product Description

Nominated for the Longman History Today Book of the Year Prize, 1995 The first full-scale study of the rituals with which the British people commemorated three-quarters of a million war dead. Explains both the origins of the two minutes silence and the reasons for the success of the poppy appeal. This book examines how the British people came to terms with the massive trauma of the First World War. Although the literary memory of the war has often been discussed, little has been written on the public ceremonies on and around 11 November which dominated the public memory of the war in the inter-war years. This book aims to remedy the deficiency by showing the pre-eminence of Armistice Day, both in reflecting what people felt about the war and in shaping their memories of it. It shows that this memory was complex rather than simple and that it was continually contested. Finally it seeks to examine the impact of the Second World War on the memory of the First and to show how difficult it is to recapture the idealistic assumptions of a world that believed it had experienced 'the war to end all wars'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #680931 in Books
• Published on: 1994-08-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 253 pages

Review
'Adrian Gregory has produced a fine study of Armistice rituals between the wars...Rich in detail and accurate in account, this is a definitive work on the process of public memory.' Social History Society Bulletin 'This book provides a potent reminder of the power of the language of sacrifice in past wars as a means of justifying future ones.' History Workshop Journal '... sheds new light on the conflicts and social fault-lines more generally characteristic of British society in the inter-war years.' The German Historical Association Bulletin 'Gregory argues his case forcefully and well, drawing on the best of recent European historiography for interpretive tools. He raises some fascinating issues which will make everyone view their own local Remebrance Day ceremony in a different light.' Canadian Military History '...Adrian Gregory's study combines academic expertise and popular interest with consummate ease. ...The Silence of Memory is written with clarity, is rich indetai

About the Author
Adrian Gregory, Pembroke College,Oxford

Customer Reviews

November 11 remembered
3905. The Silence of Memory Armistice Day 1919-1946, by Adrian Gregory (28 June 2004) This book turned out to be quite a narrow book, concentrating on the observance of Nov 11 in England, and while evidencing a lot of research was not as interesting as I expected. The final chapter sets out at the beginning the poignant and evocative lines by Vernon Scannell:
Whenever the November sky
Quivers with a bugle's hoarse, sweet cry,
The reason darkens; in its evening gleam
Crosses and flares, tormented wire, grey earth
Splattered with crimson flowers,
And I remember,
Not the war I fought in
But the one called Great
Which ended in a sepia November
Four years before my birth.

Here is a link where the whole poem can be read: Aftermath Poetry: The Great War