Martial experiences and the mythologies that surround them have profoundly affected the ways in which Americans think of themselves. Wars identify the heroes who help define national character, provide the stories for the grand narratives of belonging and sacrifice, and serve as markers for essential moments of transformation. However, only in the last several years have scholars begun using the term “cultural history of American warfare” to identify the study of how public discourse formulates these defining myths and narratives. This volume brings together scholarship from diverse fields in a common mission to demonstrate the usefulness and significance of studying the cultural history of American warfare. The Martial Imagination: Cultural Aspects of American Warfare canvasses the American war experience from the Revolution to the War on Terror, examining how it infuses legitimacy and conformity with an urgency that contorts ideas of citizenship, nationhood, gender, and other pliable categories. The multidisciplinary scholarship in this volume represents the varied perspectives of cultural history, American studies, literary criticism, war and society, media studies, and public culture analysis, illustrating the rich dialogues that epitomize the cultural history of American warfare. Bringing together both recognized and emerging scholars, this book is the first anthology to feature essays on this topic, comprising research from twelve authors who represent a wide range of experiences and disciplines. Their work uncovers new and surprising understandings of the American war experience that reveal the ways in which culture makers have grappled with the trauma of war, salvaged meaning from the meaningless, or advanced some ulterior agenda.

Deploys martial arts as a lens to analyze performance, power, and identity within the evolving fusion of Black and Asian American cultures in history and media.

Gautam Chakravarty explores representations of the event which has become known in the British imagination as the 'Indian Mutiny' of 1857 in British popular fiction and historiography. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources including diaries, autobiographies and state papers, Chakravarty shows how narratives of the rebellion were inflected by the concerns of colonial policy and by the demands of imperial self-image. He goes on to discuss the wider context of British involvement in India from 1765 to the 1940s, and engages with constitutional debates, administrative measures, and the early nineteenth-century Anglo-Indian novel. Chakravarty approaches the mutiny from the perspectives of postcolonial theory as well as from historical and literary perspectives to show the extent to which the insurrection took hold of the popular imagination in both Britain and India. The book has a broad interdisciplinary appeal and will be of interest to scholars of English literature, British imperial history, modern Indian history and cultural studies.

This book explores five cases of monument and public commemorative space related to World War II (WWII) in contemporary China (Mainland), Hong Kong and Taiwan, all of which were built either prior to or right after the end of the War and their physical existence still remains. Through the study on the monuments, the project illustrates past and ongoing controversies and contestations over Chinese nation, sovereignty, modernism and identity. Despite their historical affinities, the three societies in question, namely, Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, vary in their own ways of telling, remembering and forgetting WWII. These divergences are not only rooted in their different political circumstances and social experiences, but also in their current competitions, confrontations and integrations. This book will be of great interest to historians, sinologists and analysts of new Asian nationalism.

Spanning the wide world of sports, this volume is packed with every conceivable fact that anyone would possibly want to know about nearly 300 sports, including history and practice worldwide.

A unique collection of 36 chapters on the history of Chinese medical illustrations, this volume will take the reader on a remarkable journey from the imaging of a classical medicine to instructional manuals for bone-setting, to advertising and comic books of the Yellow Emperor. In putting images, their power and their travels at the centre of the analysis, this volume reveals many new and exciting dimensions to the history of medicine and embodiment, and challenges eurocentric histories. At a broader philosophical level, it challenges historians of science to rethink the epistemologies and materialities of knowledge transmission. There are studies by senior scholars from Asia, Europe and the Americas as well as emerging scholars working at the cutting edge of their fields. Thanks to generous support of the Wellcome Trust, this volume is available in Open Access.

Mars in the human imagination from the invention of the telescope to the present For centuries, the planet Mars has captivated astronomers and inspired writers of all genres. Whether imagined as the symbol of the bloody god of war, the cradle of an alien species, or a possible new home for human civilization, our closest planetary neighbor has played a central role in how we think about ourselves in the universe. From Galileo to Kim Stanley Robinson, Robert Crossley traces the history of our fascination with the red planet as it has evolved in literature both fictional and scientific. Crossley focuses specifically on the interplay between scientific discovery and literary invention, exploring how writers throughout the ages have tried to assimilate or resist new planetary knowledge. Covering texts from the 1600s to the present, from the obscure to the classic, Crossley shows how writing about Mars has reflected the desires and social controversies of each era. This astute and elegant study is perfect for science fiction fans and readers of popular science.