Brutality & Desire: War & Sexuality In Europe'S Twentieth Cen

Description:
Tracing the arc of sexual violence coursing through Europe's twentieth century from the Armenian genocide through Auschwitz and Algeria to Bosnia, this pathbreaking volume expands military history to include the realm of sexuality for both soldiers and civilians, both during war and in its aftermath. Examining contrapuntal stories of consensual romance and accounts of grotesque violence and intimate brutality, it also contributes significant new insights to the history of sexuality in the twentieth century. The volume also breaks important conceptual ground precisely by broadening twentieth-century European history to include colonial and border areas (from the Ottoman Empire in the 1910s to Indochinese and Senegalese soldiers in WWI to Italy's war in Ethiopia in the 1930s to the Nazi-occupied Soviet Union in the 1940s to Algeria in the 1950s-1960s) to the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Review:
'This wonderful book makes a powerful contribution to the history of Europe in the 20th century. With their complex and comparative treatment of wars -- from the Armenian genocide, to the Holocaust, colonization and decolonization, and the recent conflict in the Balkans -- these collected essays carefully historicize the meanings and modalities of sexualized violence and sexual desire. Together they brilliantly demonstrate the intimate and integral ties between the history of sexuality and the history of European war.' - Judith Surkis, Centre for European Studies, Harvard University, USA 'Scholars and instructors from a broad range of disciplines (European history, military history, gender studies, imperialism, racism) will be grateful for this path-breaking collection of essays that analyze the complex intersections of sexuality and war from the Armenian genocide to the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. By focusing not only on sexual violence but also on desire and the consensual sexuality made possible by the dislocation and anonymity of war, the authors of this fine book also provide an important history of both female and male sexuality during Europe's bloody century.' - Maria Hohn, Vassar College, USA 'Astonishing and unforgettable, this book is one of a kind. Its explorations into the taboo territory of sex and war span the 20th century, from Anatolia to Ethiopia, Auschwitz, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and points between and beyond. These chapters are as remarkable for the deep particularity they exhibit in each case as for the powerful and urgently universal nature of the viciousness, pain, exhilaration, and desire they reveal. Dagmar Herzog has assembled a compelling, indeed, indisputable case for the inseparability of war and sex, in all their manifestations.' - Doris L. Bergen, University of Toronto, Canada 'This history of sexuality risks a great deal. It confronts the issue of sexual violence -- against women, against men, and against children. It also takes on desire and love or, in any case, consensual relationships in times of war. The book succeeds and may serve as a model for further explorations because it is based on remarkably thorough research and on prudence as well as good judgment in making sense of sexuality in times of war.' - Michael Geyer, University of Chicago, USA

Table of Contents:
Introduction: War and Sexuality in Europe's Twentieth Century; D.Herzog 'A Fate Worse Than Dying': Sexual Violence during the Armenian Genocide; M.Bjornlund Race and Sex, Fear and Loathing in France during the Great War; R.S.Fogarty Italian Fascism's Ethiopian Conquest and the Dream of a Prescribed Sexuality; M-A.Matard-Bonucci 'The Good Fellow': Negotiation, Remembrance, and Recollection -- Homosexuality in the British Armed Forces, 1939-1945; E.Vickers 'Youth Off the Rails': Teenage Girls and German Soldiers -- A Case Study in Occupied Denmark, 1940-1945; L.A.Hansen Camp Brothels: Forced Sex Labour in Nazi Concentration Camps; R.Sommer Between 'Racial Awareness' and Fantasies of Potency: Nazi Sexual Politics in the Occupied Territories of the Soviet Union, 1942-1945; R.Muhlhauser Sexual Abuse of Jewish Women in Auschwitz-Birkenau; N.Shik Sexual Violence in the Algerian War; R.Branche The 'Sum of Such Actions': Investigating Mass Rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina Through a Case Study of Foca; T.Iacobelli

Author Biography:
DAGMAR HERZOG is Professor of History and Daniel Rose Faculty Scholar at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA. She is the author of Sex in Crisis: The New Sexual Revolution and the Future of American Politics (2008) and Sex after Fascism: Memory and Morality in Twentieth-Century Germany (2005).