Fighting Fictions : War, Narrative and National Identity [Paperback]

Kevin Foster (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0745309550 | ISBN-13: 978-0745309552 | Publication Date: November 1, 1998

This text applies theories of contemporary cultural studies to the analysis of wars. The central proposition is that, just as wars produce fictions, so the apprehension and experience of wars themselves - in the real world - are substantially the products of fictions of nationhood, history, race, gender and class. The book offers an analysis of a broad range of war fictions - popular fiction, journals, memoirs, contemporary press coverage, histories and official government reports, as well as photographic, graphic and cinematic treatments - drawn from or reflecting on the conflicts in Vietnam, the two world wars, the Spanish Civil War and the conflicts in the Gulf and the Falklands. It sets out the relations between fiction, myth and ideology in the construction and deconstruction of war.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Pluto Pr (November 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0745309550
• ISBN-13: 978-0745309552
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,190,715 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant analysis of media during Falklands war, July 31, 2001

By 

William Podmore (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fighting Fictions : War, Narrative and National Identity (Paperback)

In this fascinating book, Kevin Foster looks at the ways in which Britain experienced the Falklands war. He makes sense of the vast number of accounts, and of the various themes rehearsed.

The Thatcher Government portrayed its decision to fight, and its conduct of the campaign, as expressions of the essential national character, the `true Britain'. The mass media at once swung into line. In fact, the war primarily served a purpose hostile to the nation, Thatcher's political survival.

Government and media equated Argentina's initial recovery of the Islands with the Nazi invasion of Poland, as they immediately identified the war with the Second World War, and Thatcher with Churchill. They saw the Falklands as the image of Britain, a ravished island Eden. They ignored the harsher similarities, of economic dependence, under-investment and social inequality.

The media depended on the military for information, which turned the journalists into what one called `troopie groupies'. The media became a single, responsible voice speaking for `our common cause'. According to their account, 'our' Government never faltered, `our' flawless heroes carried out a perfect campaign. On the other side, their corrupt, undemocratic Government and its murderous thugs waged a campaign of Latin incompetence.

The war was supposedly unavoidable. There was no alternative; the British Government, guileless innocent in a naughty world, was forced into war by the Satanic enemy. Our supreme temptation was the serpent `appeasement', diplomacy a cunning trap set by wily foreigners. Peace demonstrators were described as pro-fascist, dissenters as collaborators. In practice, this meant rejecting in principle all ceasefire proposals and negotiations; it meant war without compromise. The only acceptable ethical outcome was the enemy's total surrender.

Government and media celebrated the war as the source of national salvation, even, in Thatcher's memoirs, of world salvation. War was rebirth, welfare, humanitarianism.

This presentation of the Falklands war has become the media model for all subsequent wars. Kevin Foster's book is a model of sanity; its publication now is especially timely.