Violence, Trauma, and Memory: Responses to War in the Late Medieval and Early Modern World brings together eight essays that examine medieval and early modern violence and warfare in France, the Hispanic World, and the Dutch Republic through the lens of trauma studies and memory studies. By focusing on warfare, these essays by historians, literary specialists, and historians of visual culture demonstrate how individuals and groups living with the "ungraspable" outcomes of wartime violence grappled with processing and remembering (both culturally and politically) the trauma of war.
Nicholas Ealy is professor of English and modern languages at the University of Hartford. Alexandra Onuf is associate professor and chair of the art history department in the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford.
This collection includes an impressive range of studies on the connections between military violence, emotions, memory, and trauma from the Hundred Years' War to the Thirty Years' War. The comparative way in which it is arranged allows for fruitful understandings within and between the regions of France, the Hispanic World, and the Dutch Republic, while also providing a wealth of interdisciplinary analysis of their respective literature, visual culture, and history. The greatest strength of this volume is its challenge to the old myth that late medieval and early modern Europe was so violent that warfare had become banal. Instead, they restore the human story to the history of warfare in this period, and they allow us to see how it continued to shape and reshape human communities well off the battlefield. This is a good introduction for those new to the field, while providing a tremendous amount of insight to more advanced scholars. As such, it is an important and significant contribution to current scholarship on late medieval and early modern society. --Kate McGrath, Central Connecticut State University Violence, Trauma, and Memory: Responses to War in the Late Medieval and Early Modern World showcases the richness of the archive in premodern Continental and Colonial Europe for contemporary reflection about the forms, strategies, and effects of cultural memory in the wake of traumatic events. Its expertly researched and well-written essays span a range of representational genres and linguistic traditions, offering stimulating close readings that never lose sight of the larger questions that lend the volume both its coherence and its import. --Andrea Frisch, University of Maryland
