Ghosts of War in Vietnam

Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-1-107-65942-1
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 27, 234 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 346 g

Reihe: Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare

This is a fascinating 2008 study of the Vietnamese experience and memory of the Vietnam War through the lens of popular imaginings about the wandering souls of the war dead. These ghosts of war play an important part in postwar Vietnamese historical narrative and imagination, and Heonik Kwon explores the intimate ritual ties with these unsettled identities which still survive in Vietnam today as well as the actions of those who hope to liberate these hidden but vital historical presences from their uprooted social existence. Taking a unique approach to the cultural history of war, he introduces gripping stories about spirits claiming social justice and about his own efforts to wrestle with the physical and spiritual presence of ghosts. Although these actions are fantastical, this book shows how examining their stories can illuminate critical issues of war and collective memory in Vietnam and the modern world more generally.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kwon, Heonik

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Militärgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Geschichtspolitik, Erinnerungskultur
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; 1. Ghosts of war; 2. Mass excavation; 3. Missing in action; 4. The phantom leg; 5. Death in the street; 6. Transforming ghosts; 7. Money for ghosts; Conclusion.

Über Autor(innen)

Kwon, Heonik
Heonik Kwon is Lecturer at the School of Social and Political Studies, University of Edinburgh. He is the author of After the Massacre: Commemoration and Consolation in Ha My and My Lai (2006).