Lest we Forget

When we went to the National Memorial Arboretum earlier in the year I had a conversation with Charles Bagott Jewitt (Tr 78) about how remembering and memorialising has changed over the years.

Now the NMA has published a book, Lest We Forget on just this theme. The 'blurb' explains:

Remembering is part of the human condition. The spontaneous and entirely unorganised honouring of coffins brought back from Afghanistan by the people of Wootton Bassett is testament that many people have a deep concern for the memory of those who have died in recent conflict.  Over the past decade, the British Remembrance season has grown once more in significance, but popular outpourings of grief also include the mass response to the death of Princess Diana and the Hillsborough disaster. 

Lest We Forget chronicles the depth and variety of forms of Remembrance both nationally in Britain and across the world, ranging from the traditional ceremony of Armistice Day, to the more contested narratives of conflicts in Iraq or Rwanda.  Also included in the 34 case studies:

• Remembrance after World War One; Slavery memorials; Memorials in the US Landscape; War Widows and Remembrance; ‘Commemorating animals, glorifying humans?’; The National Memorial Arboretum; Artists of Twentieth Century Remembrance; Pacifist war memorial in Western France; Web-remembrance.

You can order the book from the History Press, here.