The Labour of Loss: Mourning, Memory and Wartime Bereavement in Australia / Edition 1

by Joy Damousi

Overview

The Labour of Loss explores how mothers, fathers, widows, relatives and friends dealt with their experiences of grief and loss during and after the First and Second World Wars. Based on an examination of private loss through letters and diaries, this study makes a significant contribution to understanding how people came to terms with the deaths of friends and family. Unlike other studies in this area, The Labour of Loss considers how mourning affected men and women in different ways, and analyzes the gendered dimensions of grief.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521669740
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/28/1999
Series:	Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare , #7
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.02(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.59(d)

Table of Contents

Part I. The First World War: 1. Theatres of grief, theatres of loss; 2. The sacrificial mother; 3. A father's loss; 4. The war widow and the cost of memory; 5. Returned limbless soldiers: identity through loss; Part II. The Second World War: 6. Absence as loss on the homefront and the battlefront; 7. Grieving mothers; 8. A war widow's mourning.

Editorial Reviews

"The Labour of Loss offers a new perspective on the impact of twentieth-century warfare, because it engages seriously with the dimensions of grief and emotion experienced by soldiers and their families." Kate Darian-Smith, TLS

From the Publisher