書評：戰敗文化：論國家創傷、哀悼與復原》

《戰敗文化：論國家創傷、哀悼與復原》

傑弗遜·蔡斯 譯

紐約：大都會圖書出版社。404頁，$27.50，ISBN 0-850-4421-3

出版日期：2003年4月

在《戰敗的文化》中，獨立學者與文化歷史學家沃爾夫岡·施維爾布施比較了

美國內戰後的美國南方、

普法戰爭後的法國，以及

第一次世界大戰後的德國的經驗。

1865年至1918年代表了從有限戰爭到全面戰爭的轉型，戰爭被「想像為生死之戰，不僅在軍隊之間，也在整個民族之間」。

類似於利亞·格林菲爾德在《民族主義》中

Liah Greenfeld's Nationalism

將民族主義解釋為一種意識形態上的怨恨

或對被認為更先進民族的嫉妒，

施維爾布施認為，這一轉型期戰爭中的失敗經歷對這三個社會產生了救贖性的影響。

他引用德國歷史學家萊因哈特·科塞勒克的話：

「歷史智慧……因被征服者而豐富……被擊敗是知識進步的源泉。」

每個失敗的社會都經歷了幾個階段。

每個社會都變成了「夢境之地」，責怪前政權的背叛，

以此來逃避責任。

每個社會都將失敗歸因於敵人缺乏軍人美德，

無論是通過壓倒性力量還是依賴技術。

每個社會都宣稱在精神上優於對手，並通過失敗獲得全球道德領導地位。

每個社會都發展出否認失敗的神話，將復仇推遲到一個救世主般的未來

（在結語中，施維爾布施暗示當前美國在中東的侵略行為是對越南戰爭的延遲報復，或對不滿的糾正）。

每個社會都模仿其征服者在經濟、軍事或教育現代化方面的做法。

施維爾布施剖析了評論家的措辭選擇，提供了令人震驚的洞見，連繫起這三個國家。

他引用一位提倡新南方模仿北方工業化的倡導者的話：

「[南方]的森林……充滿了尋找投資機會的新英格蘭資本家，你幾乎無法開槍而不殺死一個。」

對施維爾布施來說，這是一個弗洛伊德式的口誤，揭示了

南方通過最終的經濟勝利來報復軍事失敗的潛在願望。

他認為法國和德國的舞蹈熱潮是對集體創傷的宣洩反應，並斷言沃爾特·司各特的小說以及聖女貞德和齊格弗里德史詩傳奇（都是在大量入侵者中英勇覆滅的故事）在團結各自被擊敗的國家中發揮了作用。

施維爾布施在斷言被擊敗的國家在長期內比其對手適應得更好時未能說服。

他有效地解釋了到

1880年代，法國如何實際投資於非洲殖民而非德國的報復；

在阿爾及利亞的成功培養了一種進攻精神，否定了1914年色當戰役的重演。

但新南方，就像二十世紀小說《亂世佳人》一樣，仍然是一個流行的幻想，幾乎無法表明南方價值的最終勝利或持續存在。

同樣，第一次世界大戰後德國對美國科學管理、流水線生產和文化宣傳的吸引助長了納粹主義。

除非讀者願意忽略第三帝國的道路，德國對其勝利對手的模仿表明，野蠻和扭曲與智慧和進步同樣可能是失敗的結果

（施維爾布施慷慨地指出，約翰·基根在其宏大的《戰爭的面貌》中提出了這一點）。

《失敗的文化》是一本引人深思且具爭議性的書，應該會吸引一般成人讀者。

蒂莫西·M·羅伯茨

土耳其比爾肯特大學

GENERAL

Schivelbusch, Wolfgang

The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning and Recovery

Trans. Jefferson Chase

New York: Metropolitan Books. 404 pp., $27.50, ISBN 0-850-4421-3 Publication Date: April 2003

In The Culture of Defeat. Wolfgang Schivel-busch, an independent scholar and cultural historian, compares the experiences of the American South after the Civil War, France after the Franco-Prussian War, and Germany after World War I. The years 1865-1918 гер-resented a transition from limited to total war, when war became "imagined as a battle of life and death, not only between armies but between entire populations." Similar to Liah Greenfeld's Nationalism, in which Greenfeld explained nationalism as ideological ressenti-ment, or envy toward peoples considered more advanced, Schivelbusch argues that the experience of loss during that transitional war making time period had a redemptive impact on these three societies. He quotes a German historian, Reinhart Koselleck: "[H]istorical wisdom is...enriched... by the vanquished. ... Being defeated [is] a wellspring of intellectual progress."

Each losing society experienced several phases. Each became a "dreamland," blaming former authorities for betrayal and as a way to abdicate responsibility. Each attributed loss to the enemy's lack of soldierly virtue, either through overwhelming force or a reliance on technology. Each claimed a spiritual superior-ity to its opponent and, via loss, a position of global moral leadership. Each developed a myth denying its defeat and postponing revenge until a messianic future (in an epi-logue, Schivelbusch suggests that current U.S. belligerence in the Middle East is a deferred revanche, or redress of grievances, over Viet-nam). Each imitated its conqueror's econom-ic, military, or educational modernization.

Schivelbusch dissects commentators' word choice and provides surprising insights that connect the three nations in question. He quotes an advocate of a New South emulating Northern industrialism: "[Southern] woods. are full of New England capitalists hunting investments, and you can hardly fire a gun. without killing one." For Schivelbusch, this is a Freudian slip, belying a latent desire for the South to avenge its military loss via eventual economic victory. He sees dancing crazes in France and Germany as cathartic responses to collective trauma and asserts the uses of Wal-ter Scott's novels and the epic legends of Joan of Arc and Siegfried, all accounts of heroic demise amid massed invaders, in rallying the respective defeated nations.

Schivelbusch fails in asserting that defeat-ed countries ironically adapt better in the

long run than do their opponents. He effec-tively explains how by the 1880s France had pragmatically invested not in German revanche, but African colonialism; success in Algeria cultivated an esprit de l'offensive that would deny a recurrence of Sedan in 1914. But the New South, like the twentieth-century novel Gone with the Wind, remained a popular fantasy, hardly suggesting the eventual triumph or even persistence of Southern values. Likewise, German attrac tion after World War I to American scientific management, assembly line production, and cultural propaganda assisted Nazism. Unless readers are willing to ignore the path of the Third Reich, Germany's emulation of its vic-torious opponent suggests that savagery and distortion are as likely outcomes of defeat as are wisdom and progress (as Schivelbusch graciously notes, John Keegan made this point in his grand Face of Battle).

The Culture of Defeat is a provocative and problematic book that should appeal to a gen-eral adult public.

TIMOTHY M. ROBERTS Bilkent University, Turkey