Remembering the Wars: Commemoration in Western Australian Communities by John Stephens and Graham Seal

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Ex library copy with external stickers removed. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Faded mark on front cover from barcode removal. Partial date due slip on inside page, now covered with a blank ex libris bookplate sticker.

What is important about war memorials? Why are there so many of them? What do they tell us about the past - and perhaps about the present? Why do communities expend so much energy and money on building them?

This book explores these questions and shows how the story of war remembrance in Western Australia can be revealed through the memorial places that communities build to commemorate their local heroes.

Through a representative selection of Western Australian war memorials, this book illustrates that while Anzac continues to be a prime motivation for war remembrance, there are significant local interpretations and representations of the national story.

It is the collection of these local and individual negotiations that gives Western Australian war commemoration its unique perspective and flavour. Further, war memorials reflect changing community attitudes and values about military conflicts and their consequences, including the ambitions and sorrows of its people. (back cover)