The twentieth century will be remembered for great innovation in two particularareas art and culture and technological advancement. Much of its prodigioustechni... » 

The twentieth century will be remembered for great innovation in two particularareas art and culture and technological advancement. Much of its prodigioustechnical inventiveness however was pressed into service in the conduct ofwarfare. Why asks Margot Norris did violence and suffering on such an immensescale fail to arouse artistic and cultural expressions powerful enough toprevent the recurrence of these horrors? Why was art not more successful through its use of dramatic emotionally charged material its ability tostir imagination and arouse empathy and outrage in producing an alternativeto the military logic that legitimates war?Military argument in the twentieth century has been fortified by the authorityof the rationalism that we attribute to science Norris argues. Warfare istherefore legitimized by powerful discourses that arts own arsenal of stylesand genres has limited power to counter. Arts difficulty in representing theviolent death of entire generations or populations has been particularly acute.Choosing works that have become representative of their historically violentmoment Norris explores not only their aesthetic strategies and perspectivesbut also the nature of the power they wield and the ethical engagements theyenable or impede. She begins by mapping the altered ethical terrain of moderntechnological warfare with its increasing targeting of civilian populationsfor destruction. She then proceeds historically with chapters on the trenchpoetry and modernist poetry of World War I Hemingways A Farewell to Arms andErich Maria Remarques All Quiet on the Western Front both the book and thefilm of Schindlers List the conflictinghistorical stories of the ManhattanProject a comparison of American and Japanese accounts of Hiroshima FrancisFord Coppolas film Apocalypse Now and the effects of press censorship in thePersian Gulf War.By looking at the whole span of the centurys writing on war «