Liberal democracies have always accepted the need to go to war, despite the fact that war can undermine liberal values. Wars may be won or lost, not only on the battlefield, but in the perceptions of the publics who pay for them. Presentation is therefore increasingly important.
Starting with the First World War, the first major war fought by liberal democracies after the emergence on mass media, Liberal Democracies at War explores the relationship between representations of liberal violence and the ways in which the liberal state understands 'rights' in war. Experts in the field explore crucial questions such as:
· How have the violences of war perpetrated in their names been communicated to publics of liberal democracies?
· How have representations of conflict changed over time?
· How far have the victims of liberal wars been able to insert their stories into the record?
Andrew Knapp is Professor of French Politics and Contemporary History at the University of Reading, UK.
Hilary Footitt is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Reading, UK.
Introduction, Hilary Footitt and Andrew Knapp \ Part 1: Liberal Democracies and War \ 1. The Allied media and World War One, Joëlle Beurier \ 2. The case of the disappearing civilians: the Allied bombing offensives in World War Two, Andrew Knapp \ 3. Vietnam: presentation and legacy, Bernd Greiner \ 4. The Clean and Dirty Politics of War: Legitimacy, Guantánamo, and the War on Terror, Elspeth Van Veeren \ Part 2: Violence and War \ 5. The underside of 'occupation', Hilary Footitt \ 6. Rape and Trauma, Joanna Bourke \ 7. 'At least I stayed decent': military interrogations between representation and memory, 1945-1948, Simona Tobia \ Part 3: The Victims' gaze \ 8. Femininity, feminism and the representation of torture, Sue Malvern \ 9. Writing War in the Enemy Tongue: the Algerian novel of the War of Independence, Sara Poole \ Conclusion, Hilary Footitt and Andrew Knapp
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