Commemorating Race and Empire in The First World War Centenary

First World War commemoration in Europe has been framed as a moment of
national trial and as a collective European tragedy. But the ‘Great War for
Civilisation’ was more than just a European conflict. It was in fact a global
war, a clash of empires that began a process of nationalist agitation against
imperial polities and the racisms that underpinned them in Asia, Africa and
beyond. Despite the global context of Centenary commemorative activity these
events remain framed by national and state imaginaries and ones in which the
ideas about nation, race and imperialism that animated and dominated men and
women during the Great War sit uncomfortably with modern sensibilities. By
drawing on original archival research, translations from French and Mandarin
into English and by employing multidisciplinary conceptual frames of analysis,
this exciting and innovative volume explores how race and empire, and racism
and imperialism, were commemorated during the First World War Centenary.