Daniel Travers. The Second World War and the ‘Other British Isles’

The historical scholarship exploring twentieth-century war memory is appropriately extensive. Given the connections between the two global conflicts and the politics of nationalism, much of this scholarship has focused—understandably—on assessing the postwar practices of commemoration via a national framework. Thus we have an influential examination of French war memory (Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome [1991]), a probing discussion of American war memory (John Bodar, The “Good War” in American Memory [2010]), and an engaging survey of British war memory (Mark Connelly, We Can Take It! Britain and the Memory of the Second World War [2004]). The contemporary resurgence of nationalist politics in both North America and Europe would seem to hint at the continued relevance of such a framework, suggesting that for many the “nation” remains a—if not the—crucial frame of reference. Yet at the same time, the energy of current political debate is fueled in part by ongoing...

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