'The agony of looking war's carnage in the face compels us to refract its horror through symbolic re-enactments and collective commemorations, as well as to dull the pain through rituals of healing and consolation. Drawing on decades of pioneering research in the First World War and its aftermath, the distinguished historian Jay Winter trenchantly explores a wide variety of such efforts, including painting, photography, war poetry, state monuments, different national languages of 'glory' and 'sacrifice,' and even the uses and abuses of silence. Insofar as the mourning process is still ongoing for conflicts both under way and likely to come, War beyond Words not only instructs us about the past, but also foretells, alas, our future.' M. E. Jay, author of Reason After its Eclipse