Description
CAMBRIDGE A Darkling Plain Stories of Conflict and Humanity during War 2014 Edition by Kristen Renwick Monroe, With Chloe Lampros-Monroe, With Jonah Pellecchia
How do people maintain their humanity during wars? Despite its importance, this question receives scant scholarly attention, perhaps because war is overwhelming. The generally accepted belief is that wars bring out the worst in us, pitting one against another. 'War is hell', William Tecumseh Sherman famously noted, and even 'just' wars are massively destructive and inhumane. Since ethics is concerned with discovering what takes us to a morally superior place, one conducive to betterment and happiness - studying what helps people survive wartime trauma thus becomes an extremely valuable enterprise. A Darkling Plain fills an important scholarly void, analyzing wartime stories that reveal much about our capacity to process trauma, heal wounds, reclaim lost spirits, and derive meaning and purpose from the most horrific of personal events. Table of contents :- Part I: 1. War is hell. War is all hell. Scholarly literature on the unspeakable: literature, methodology, and data; Part II. War and Humanity in World War II: 2. If something's going to get you, it'll get you. Frank, American solider in the South Pacific; 3. Prejudice, bigotry, and hatred. Love and luck. Laura, Holocaust survivor on Schindler's list; 4. Everything went downhill after that. Gunther, refugee and displaced person with an SS father; 5. In the middle of the hailstorm, one doesn't fear for one's own life. The red princess and the July 20 Plot to kill Hitler; 6. Belonging to something. Herb, Austrian Jewish refugee from the Third Reich; 7. Hard to adjust after all that. Grace, interned Japanese American teenager; Part III. Other Voices, Other Wars: From Indochina to Iraq: 8. Best forget about Vietnam. Christopher, Vietnam; 9. For my family. Tuan, South Vietnam; 10. Bad memory, bad feeling. Sara on the Khmer Rouge; 11. Someone loving me. Kimberly on the Khmer Rouge; 12. Collateral damage and the greater good. Doc and the Iraq War; 13. Easily the worst experience of my life. Sebastian on the Iraq War; Part IV. Civil Wars and Genocides, Dictators and Domestic Oppressors: 14. Grandfather had his head cut off. Rose and the Armenian genocide; 15. A resistance to keep you alive. Ngugi on the Mau Mau, anti-colonialism, and homegrown dictators; 16. Stuck in the mud in the middle of a civil war. Fabiola on the Nicaraguan Civil War; 17. Too much was seen. Marie on the Lebanese Civil War; 18. Care about other people. Okello and Idi Amin's Uganda; 19. People suffered great loss. Reza and Afghanistan under the Soviets; 20. Religion mixed with politics creates bad things. Leyla and the Islamic Republic of Iran; Part V. Guarding One's Humanity during Wars and Genocide: 21. The fundamental things apply; Conclusion: the enormity of it all.