This will hurt me...

A very interesting discussion can be found in the New Yorker around the American Civil War and the impact of the resultant deaths on the US. Adam Gopnik's essay "In the mourning store" is well worth a read. Gopnik's essay revolves around three new works that explore the war and the impact of death on US society: Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War ; Mark S. Schantz’s Awaiting the Heavenly Country: The Civil War and America’s Culture of Death ; and Mark E. Neely Junior's The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction . Especially interesting to me is how - in order to deal with the horrors of war - new forms of social ritual emerged. As Gopnik points out, these rituals were "designed not so much to 'blind' survivors to the reality as to make them believe that the reality was necessary and noble". In many respects, this has been echoed in most subsequent wars. Even more interesting to me is the reflec...

As is always a good sign, I managed to steam through this book in 3 days, despite the fact that I’ve been working full time at the moment. Seriously, I found this book difficult to put down, and one of those occasions when you are truly sad to finish it. Compounding this is the fact that we get no subsequent biographical information of the author (although I both respect and understand her right to choose this). I’ve tried not to give too much away as to events of the book. The author – then a 34-year-old journalist – started this eight-week diary in April 1945, as the Russians were encircling Berlin and the city's (mostly female) inhabitants was heading to its cellars to wait out the fighting. The scarcity of food meant that anyone able-bodied took to looting buildings for food of any kind. However, soon the Red Army arrived and soldiers were everywhere. With an astonishing degree of bluntness, she describes the plundering of her neighbourhood when Berlin was conquered and Soviet ...

In Paris: After the Liberation , Antony Beevor (with the aid of fellow historian – who also happens to be his wife – Artemis Cooper) begins with a brief recount of the invasion of France, the collapse of the French defence and subsequent German occupation. However, his main concern lays with the post-war period in the French capital. This period saw the trials of collaborationist leaders, de Gaulle's reestablishment of the republic and his rapid resignation in 1946, widespread panic at the prospect of a Communist or right-wing coup and the arrival of Marshall Plan aid, which aided the French in the face of economic collapse. As usual, Beevor constructs an engaging account at both the macro and micro level, capturing the desperation and exhilaration of those years through a blend of history, personal accounts, interviews, significant events and gossip. In particular, the authors illuminate the chronicle of the blind Stalinism of France's "progressive" intelligentsia. A...