Steve Middendorf

“China is the major Allied belligerent whose position on the meaning of the war has shifted most thoroughly during the postwar era.”
― Rana Mitter, China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism

“These strange wars at the end of the long tale of Empire. Putting things right, putting things in their right places, before leaving for ever. Mopping up operations. Every problem in the country caused by your own army in the long-ago.”
― Sebastian Barry, Old God's Time

“This book argues that a very useful concept for understanding how collective memory flows across both time and space is that of circuits of memory. This idea is distinct from Henry Rousso’s conception of “vectors” of memory, which describes institutions and entities that help transmit memory across time; the circuit transmits memory geographically, across national borders, as well as chronologically. Collective memory of war, or of any historical event, is rarely truly global. During the long postwar, several different circuits have emerged in which certain experiences, understandings, and judgments of the Second World War are shared (such as a core purpose of the war being to fight fascism), but the memories within them are distinct and self-contained. One such circuit exists in northwestern Europe and North America, another in Russia and some of its neighbors, a third in Japan, and a fourth in China.”
― Rana Mitter, China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism

“Papa’s long gone, but I continue to love him. I don’t believe it when people say that men like him were stupid and blind—believing in Stalin. Fearing Stalin. Believing in Lenin’s ideas. Everyone thought the same way. Believe me, they were good and honest people, they believed not in Lenin or Stalin, but in the Communist idea. In socialism with a human face, as they would call it later. In happiness for everybody. For each one. Dreamers, idealists—yes; blind—no. I’ll never agree with that. Not for anything! In the middle of the war Russia began to produce excellent tanks and planes, good weapons, but even so, without faith we would never have overcome such a formidable enemy as Hitler’s army—powerful, disciplined, which subjugated the whole of Europe. We wouldn’t have broken its back. Our main weapon was faith, not fear. I give you my honest Party-member’s word (I joined the Party during the war and am a Communist to this day). I’m not ashamed of my Party card and have not renounced it. My faith has never changed since 1941…”
― Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II