In discussing the South, for instance, the author notes the heavy reliance on Scottish history because of the many Scots immigrants who moved down the Appalachian chain after coming here. The portrait of each nation is compelling with a wealth of detail drawn from the culture, government, economy, literature, and folk heroes. For the South it was the "Lost Cause," for the French it was "Revanche-more like redress than revenge", and for WWI Germany it was "The Stab in the Back" from the homefront.Ī third commonality he finds is that "defeated nations waste little time after recovering from their initial shock, in finding scapegoats." The old regime is faulted and it's policies and goals are "often abandoned with few second thoughts." In this regard he cites, "the New South's emulation of the Yankee model, the reforms of the French army and educational system along Prussian-German lines, or the imitation of America by Germany after 19."Įach loser seems to develop a theme that helps to mitigate their grief. Often, the result is borrowing from the strength of their late opponent. Schivelbusch writes, "Being defeated appears to be an inexhaustible wellspring of intellectual progress." This is because, invariably, the loser seeks to rebuild in a way that voids the faults that led to defeat. This is a complex process, unique to each situation, yet holding many similarities. His mention of the actual fighting in these conflicts is minimal, his focus is on the coping with loss. The book considers how three nations responded to loss in war: The South in the American Civil War, France after the Franco Prussian war of 1870-1871, and Germany after World War I. His footnotes often provide an extension of the point he is addressing in the text in a manner so engaging that one is disappointed to find a footnote that provides only the source of a quotation. His writing is graceful, thoughtful-and thought provoking. His research is extensive, imaginative, and authoritative. Schivelbusch, however, has easily outdone this list, here adding Culture, Context and Comparison. Over years of reading military history it seemed that there were three main perspectives an author could work from: Causes, Conduct (how the war was fought), and Consequences. From cathartic epidemics of "dance madness" to the revolutions that so often follow battlefield humiliation, Schivelbusch finds remarkable similarities across cultures.Įloquently and vibrantly told, The Culture of Defeat is a tour de force that opens new territory for historical inquiry. He charts the losers' paradoxical equation of military failure with cultural superiority as they generate myths to glorify their pasts and explain their the nostalgic "plantation legend" after the fall of the Confederacy the cult of Joan of Arc in vanquished France the fiction of the stab in the back by "foreign" elements in postwar Germany. Focusing on three seminal cases of modern warfare-the South after the Civil War, France in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War, and Germany following World War I-Schivelbusch reveals the complex psychological and cultural reactions of vanquished nations to the experience of military defeat.ĭrawing on responses from every level of society, Schivelbusch shows how conquered societies question the foundations of their identities and strive to emulate the the South to become a "better North," the French to militarize their schools on the Prussian model, the Germans to adopt all things American. History may be written by the victors, Wolfgang Schivelbusch argues in his brilliant and provocative book, but the losers often have the final word. A fascinating look at history's losers-the myths they create to cope with defeat and the steps they take never to be vanquished again
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