Beyond Glory: Civilians, Combatants, and Society During the Battle of Shanghai
Abstract The 1932 Sino-Japanese conflict in Shanghai was the first example of a modern war waged in a large city between two heavily equipped armies. It was also the first urban conflict during which massive destruction, especially aerial bombing, ensued with utmost disregard for the consequences to civilians. This paper looks at the damage and losses the two contending armies suffered. The group of Chinese armies involved in the conflict was not prepared either to handle the consequences of using highly lethal weapons or to provide the appropriate level of medical assistance to their soldiers involved. The result was a catastrophic level of casualties. The battle for Shanghai announced the frightening massive waves of destruction that World War II would unleash on European and Japanese cities.
Landscapes of Fear: Wartime London, 1939–1945
As cartoonist Osbert Lancaster recalled in his autobiography, fear was central to the civilian experience of London during the Second World War. As the term "The People's War" suggested, the British war effort depended not only on conscripted and directed labor and the rationing of con sumer goods but also on the fortitude of civilians, particularly those in urban areas, who were constant potential targets for German bombing raids. This article ex amines three narratives of civilian experience in wartime London?private diaries, psychologists' notes, and fiction?to reveal the hidden landscapes of fear in a city at war. During the Second World War, London was the primary and most dramatic stage where both personal and communal fears were played out. Londoners feared death, loss of property, injury, bereavement, and, on a broader scale, the loss of the war and the end of Britain. The 1940s thus saw the elaboration of older Victorian fears of London as a potential canker in the heart of Imperial Britain. British civilization was once again vulnerable to being weakened by the "enemy within," and symptoms of the dreaded degeneracy were sought in expressions of
Fear, Hatred and the Hidden Injuries of Class in Early Modern England
This essay advances the proposition that the category of class, when historicized, offers a powerful interpretive tool for the understanding of early modern society. In particular, it develops Sennett and Cobb's insight that unequal social structures engender feelings of humiliation and subordination amongst poorer people; and that such 'hidden injuries' are central to the maintenance of social inequality. The essay suggests some ways in which the category of class might illuminate unexplored paths in the social history of early modern England. It then goes on to look at the relationship between social conflicts, plebeian identities and patterns of subordination and domination. Throughout, it seeks to engage with recent historical applications of the work of James C. Scott, arguing that domination and subordination are best conceived as operating in relationship to one another, rather than as polar opposites.