David Weddle, a review essay, courtesy of the Library of Social Science, commenting on Kelly Denton-Borhaug: US War-Culture, Sacrifice and Salvation. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2014.
Frozen corpses from World War One
After the final battles at the Last LTTE Redoubt, 18-19 May 2009
“Denton-Borlaug notes that she is not an “extreme” pacifist, yet she concedes little ground for waging legitimate war. In the face of actual threat or invasion, is a national community justified in defending itself, as individuals are? If so, then between the religious category of redemptive sacrifice and the economic description of lost assets, there may be a place to name those who die in combat as “good workers” in the service of a more humane world. Bestowing that honor requires no theology at all.”
german-bodies-after-the-battle-between-arras-and-lille-in-the-spring-of-1915.jpg
Australian ‘Diggers’ burying dead Anzac comrades between lines during ceasefire May 24, 1915
DAVID Weddle
One of the brutal facts of war is that technologies of death are always more advanced than methods of healing. The widespread use of cannonballs in the American Civil War caused more mangled limbs than the overworked saws of surgeons could manage to amputate; the resulting gangrene took thousands of lives in hospital tents. Anti-personnel mines—suddenly rising like flushed quail to propel their jagged contents into human flesh—create nearly irreparable wounds when they do not simply end life altogether. Continue reading →
