Combat, Body Disposal, and War Memory

Abstract

Chapter 1 sets the enquiry within the framework of the existing literature concerning death and, in particular, death in war. The chapter is divided into three main sections. First, it presents a brief overview of the growing scholarship on death, with the dual goal of showing what a focus on the meaning of death entails and how it differs from the prevalent approach employed by international-relations scholars. Second, relying on the analytic lenses provided by Ernst Kantorowicz’s concept of the king’s two bodies, the chapter discusses how attitudes towards soldiers’ lives and deaths can be recovered from a study of soldiers’ employment in war, body disposal, and commemorative practices. Thirdly, the chapter concludes by sketching an explanation of the changes in the meaning of soldier deaths discussed in the book and evaluates the existing explanations to the changes outlined in the volume.