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A Commentary On "Death So Noble"

Collective memory or myth refers to the combination "…of fact, wishful thinking, half-truth and outright invention…" that form the perceptions arising from a shared experience. Death So Noble by Jonathan Vance is a well written and well received, as awards and book sales attest, examination of public or collective memory pertaining to Canadian participation in the Great War. Vance relates the myth that developed and was fostered during the inter-war years, analyzing why and how it came into being, who was responsible for its creation and promotion, and the rules of discourse when questioning its validity. This collective memory or myth, Vance says, was embraced and promoted out of necessity for many reasons; the myth was at once consolatory, explanatory, served as justification and was employed as a unifying or nation building experience for a very young country. Supporting his conclusions Vance employs a postmodern approach, including such diverse sources as war memorials, church windows, newspaper editorials, theatre productions, memoirs and more. This approach is utilized artfully, omitting the inherent irony and pessimism of the genre, while simultaneously opposing the conclusions of another prominent historian, Paul Fussell. Fussell, Vance asserts, applied a traditional survey of literary sources to reach the conclusion that the horrors of the Great War left behind a sense of futility and pessimism that had not accompanied war prior to this engagement. Vance contends the opposite. In fact, he says, by studying the perceptions of Canadians, as expressed in popular culture of the time, the collective memory of the Great War affirmed for most Canadians the optimism and faith in progress that were defining characteristics of the Romantic and Modern eras.
This optimism and faith Vance explains was born neither of thin air, nor simply a national naiveté, utility was the driving force behind the myth. A war resulting in 60,000 deaths and 170,000 wounded had to...