This unusual study compares societies that lost major wars and survived, as opposed to being dismantled by their conquerors. Schivelbusch (Disenchanted Night, etc.) addresses the question of how the American South after 1865, France after 1871 and Germany after 1918 came to terms with what happened to them. He describes a two-level coping process, in each case directed by pre-war elites that successfully manipulated postwar mentalities in order to retain power. The first level involved creating myths that mitigated the psychological impact of defeat: the former Confederacy carefully tended the "Lost Cause"; France scapegoated the empire of Napoleon III; Germany turned to legends of an army undefeated at the front but betrayed by domestic weakness. A second structure of myths focused on regeneration and recovery. In America that involved industry and a restoration of white supremacy (eventually, Schivelbusch finds, acknowledged as appropriate by the North); for France, Republican government, military renovation and imperialism; Germany turned heavily to "modern" fashions (jazz and movies) and dreams of altering what was regularly described as the "disgraceful" Versailles peace settlement. Such dreams, Schivelbusch finds, were more passive speculation than active preparation for revenge: even after Hitler's accession to power, ordinary Germans were reluctant to consider treaty revision if the price would be war. For all three societies discussed here, the best revenge for defeat was seen not as payback but as living well and moving into a positive future. That the eventual results—the murderous lynchings of the Jim Crow South, the horrific scale of death in Nazi Germany—were far from "positive" is well-understood by Schivelbusch, but beyond the scope of this book. (Apr.)
Forecast:For readers trying to envision a post-Saddam Iraq, this book provides both historical examples and theoretical tools. Expect this heavily footnoted title to have an impact on the punditocracy, if not a large trade readership.
