{"product_id":"sacrifice-and-modern-war-writing-alex-houen-9780198912286","title":"Sacrifice and Modern War Writing: Atavisms, Martyrdoms, and Economies of Loss","description":"\u003cem\u003eSacrifice and Modern War Writing\u003c\/em\u003e presents the most extensive study to date of twentieth- and twenty-first-century war writing. Examining works by over 110 authors, Alex Houen surveys how war writing explores sacrifice in relation to major modern and contemporary conflicts, from the First World War to the War on Terror. Various conceptions of sacrifice are examined, including Christian, Jewish, Islamic, and secular. The discussion ranges across literary portrayals of multiple sacrificial practices, including ancient rituals of child sacrifice, martyrdom, scapegoating, and suicide bombing. Houen builds an innovative interdisciplinary approach to how war, sacrifice, and their representations interrelate, and a wide range of Anglophone literature is discussed, including novels, memoirs, short stories, essays, manifestoes, elegies, ballads, and lyric poetry. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhereas critics and theorists have tended to emphasize that war's reality exceeds any attempt to represent it, Houen contends that political, religious, and cultural frames of sacrifice have continued to play a significant part in shaping how war's reality is shaped and experienced. Those frames are inextricably tied to modes of representation, which include symbolism and mimesis. \u003cem\u003eSacrifice and Modern War Writing\u003c\/em\u003e explores how sacrificial killing in war is itself riddled with symbolic transfigurations and mimetic exchanges, and it builds a fresh approach by arguing that the figurative and imaginative aspects of literary writing ironically become its very means of engaging closely with the reality of war's sacrifices. That approach also develops by using the literary analyses to critique and revise various prominent theories of sacrifice and war.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Alex Houen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0198912285\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780198912286\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Oxford University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 12\/16\/2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 336\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.50lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.32h x 6.46w x 0.95d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 03\/01\/2025","brand":"Alex Houen","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":46767367880959,"sku":"9780198912286","price":115.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_a99b1d13-99b8-4748-844d-72105a33fd21.jpg?v=1744169614","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/sacrifice-and-modern-war-writing-alex-houen-9780198912286","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}