The Enduring Costs of Forgetfulness: Europe, Asia and the Wars of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

The modern histories of Europe and East Asia are deeply intertwined: starting with the business of European expansion within the Asian world, followed by the often violence-facilitated construction of colonial empires and then in the twentieth century interlinked crises which saw many conflicts as these empires dissolve away. These crises included numerous violent conflicts: civil wars, inter-state wars and finally an interlinked set of general wars, which engulfed the better parts of both regions. The casualties of these conflicts ran into millions. These processes gave us the outlines of today’s political–cultural world. They also provide a rich stock of resources—intellectual, moral and practical—which might be either studied for their own sake or plundered for contemporary lessons. One such lesson or set of lessons relates to the business of war; the decisions to undertake such actions, their costs and the ways in which events are subsequently read into collective memory. There are many twists and turns in such processes, but presently it might be suggested that elite politicians in various parts of the world, in Europe via NATO expeditions and in East Asia in the bellicose rhetoric of certain governments, seem to have rather lost sight of the astonishing costs of such warfare, and so returning to the available history might be a useful exercise.