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Contested Objects breaks new ground in the interdisciplinary study of material culture. Its focus is on the rich and varied legacy of objects from the First World War as the global conflict that defined the twentieth century. From the iconic German steel helmet to practice trenches on Salisbury Plain, and from the 'Dazzle Ship' phenomenon through medal-wearing, diary-writing, trophy collecting, the market in war souvenirs and the evocative reworking of European objects by African soldiers, this book presents a dazzling array of hitherto unseen worlds of the Great War.
The innovative and multidisciplinary approach adopted here follows the lead established by Nicholas J. Saunders' Matters of Conflict (Routledge 2004), and extends its geographical coverage to embrace a truly international perspective. Australia, Africa, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium and Britain are all represented by a cross-disciplinary group of scholars working in archaeology, anthropology, cultural history, art history, museology, and cultural heritage. The result is a volume that resonates with richly documented and theoretically informed case studies that illustrate how the experiences of war can be embodied in and represented by an endless variety of artefacts, whose 'social lives' have endured for almost a century and that continue to shape our perceptions of an increasingly dangerous world.
List of contents
Introduction 1. ‘Just a Boyish Habit’…? British and Commonwealth War Trophies in the First World War 2. Shaping Matter, Meaning and Mentalities: The German Steel Helmet from Artefact to Afterlife 3. The Great War ‘Trench Club’: Typology, Use and Cultural Meaning 4. The Journey Back: On the Nature of Donations to the In Flanders Fields Museum 5. ‘Brothers in Arms’ – Masonic Artefacts of the First World War and its Aftermath 6. Subversive Material: African Embodiments of Modern War 7. Medals, Memory and Meaning: Symbolism and Cultural Significance of Great War Medals 8. Distinguishing the Uniform: British Military Heraldry and Group Identity 9. The Consumer Sphinx: From French Trench to Parisian Market 10. ‘The Returned Soldiers Bug’: Making the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne 11. Exploring a Language of Grief in First World War Headstone Inscriptions 12. ‘P’raps I Shall See You…’: Recognition of Loved Ones in Non-fiction Film of the First World War 13. ‘A Few Broad Stripes’: Perception, Deception and the ‘Dazzle Ship’ Phenomenon of WWI 14. Message and Materiality in Mesopotamia, 1916–17: My Grandfather’s Diary, Social Commemoration and the Experience of War 15. Postcards from the Past: War, Landscape, and Place in Argonne, France 16. ‘Calculating the Future’: Panoramic Sketching, Reconnaissance Drawing and the Material Trace of War 17. Archaeology of the Great War: The Flemish Experience 18. ‘Slowly Our Ghosts Drag Home’: Human Remains from the Heidenkopf, Serre, Somme, France 19. Great War Archaeology on the Glaciers of the Alps 20. Training for Trench Warfare: The Archaeological Evidence from Salisbury Plain
About the author
Nicholas J. Saunders, Paul Cornish
Summary
Contested Objects explores the social worlds of First World War material culture, and investigates its archaeological and anthropological intersections with identity, memory, landscape and heritage.
