Beautiful War

“Beidler is a keen observer of social architecture, and this collection includes studies of urban space from Beidler's extensive travels. Beidler's work emphasizes the study of existing works of art, but he ultimately wants to capture what he calls the archaeology of war, a complex phenomenon by which a whole people understand their identity through specific artifacts of history and memory inherited not merely from its wars, but from the way its wars have been culturally manipulated. Beidler's voice gains force and power from his own identity as a combat veteran. Beautiful War is held together by Beidler's own investment of his experience and faculties in this task of unpacking the modern fascination with war.”
—War, Literature The Arts

“As with all of Beidler’s work, this study abounds with brilliant and frightening insights. Essential.”
—CHOICE

 

“Beidler offers us a dazzling array of case studies that, when taken together, convey the seemingly inexhaustible energy that Western cultures continue to pour into the representations of war via an ever-changing and ever-expanding set of technologies and the protean nature of armed conflict as a locus for collective memory.”
—Steven Trout, author of On the Battlefield of Memory: The First World War and American Remembrance, 1919–1941

“The subject of war is, of course, an important one, but what separates this book from many others on the subject is its unusual focus on so many forms of art—literature, film, music, visual art, poetry, photography, architecture, sculpture, shrines, memorials, and the museums that contain such—as they reflect on the intense human response that war induces.”
—Donald Anderson, editor of War, Literature, and the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities