Death in War and Peace

Pat Jalland has been a Professor of History at the Australian National University since 1997. She has published in British women's history, Anglo-Irish history, and the history of death and bereavement in Australia and Britain. Her eight books include The Liberals and Ireland (Harvester, 1980); Women, Marriage and Politics (OUP, 1986), winner of the 1987 Western Australian Literary Award for non-fiction; Death in the Victorian Family (OUP, 1996), winner of the New South Wales Premier's Prize for History, and Changing Ways of Death in 20th Century Australia (UNSW Press, 2006).

• Introduction ; Part I: War and Peace 1914-1939 ; 1. Death, the Great War and the influenza pandemic ; 2. Violet Cecil and communities in mourning ; 3. The Bickersteths' sacred pilgrimages to the Great War Cemeteries, 1919-1931 ; 4. Death, disasters and rituals among the northern working classes, 1919-39 ; 5. Sir Sydney Cockerell: cremation and the modern way of death in England ; Part II: The Second World War ; 6. The people's war: Death in the blitz ; 7. Missing airmen and families in anguish: 'There could be no mourning' ; 8. Experiences of wartime grief ; Part III: A changing culture of death and loss since 1945 ; 9. Hidden death: Medicine and care of the dying, 1945 to 1970 ; 10. Widowhood, grief and old age 1945-1963 ; 11. Gorer's map of death: Declining rituals and prolonged sorrow, 1963 ; 12. Observing grief: C.S. Lewis and the psychiatrists ; 13. Epilogue: Change and continuity since the 1970s

An important historical contribution to the study of death and an informative account of how a country has handled far-reaching social challenge and change... Death in War and Peace succeeds in negotiating the gulf between scholarly and non-scholarly terrains, and for this Jalland must be commended.