Death So Noble Summary

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Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War, by Jonathan Vance examines the national psychology that brought about the myth in the post war period. The book attempts to analyze how Canadians made sense of the Great War. The myth was created out of dependency to elucidate four years of war and sacrifice. Vance defined it as “a complex mixture of fact, wishful thinking, half-truth, and outright invention” that not only explained the defeat of the Germans but also was simultaneously recognized the accomplishments of Canadian soldiers and contextualized them in a framework of nation building. In this essay I will analyze the scope of the book as well as the sources used and their relationship to the development of the myth for Canadians during the Great War.…show more content…
However the book primarily focuses on the events that developed in the two decades following the Armistice. The chronological scope of this book is significant because it illustrates the longevity and support the myth had within Canada. For instance even in the mid 1930s when a revisionist interpretation of the war emerged it only strengthened and reshaped the myth in its own image as proponents of the myth restated their memory in stronger terms (7). Furthermore, this period was significant as Canada’s economy suffered after the war, which later spiraled into the great depression. For many, society appeared to be drifting aimlessly and the myth allowed for mass nostalgia back to a time when life had direction and meaning. Unsurprisingly, the geographical scope of this book is focused primarily on Upper Canada and the Anglo sections of the country. The myth did not gain support in Lower Canada as French Catholics had been opposed to the war from the start initially on ideological beliefs and later because of

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