The construction of memory in interwar France

The author takes a close look at the human impact of the Great War by the examinig the ways in wich the French remembered their veterans and war dead after the armistice. Arguing that emmory is more than just a record of experience, Shermans offers a radically new perspective: he traces every step in the process of monument building as he analyzes commemoration´s competing goals -to pay tribute to the dead, to console the bereaved, and to incorporate mourners´ individual memories into a larger political discourse.