The Cultural Politics of Veterans’ Narratives

Investigates how the power of stories shapes war’s legacy for veterans and societies

• Critically explores the role veterans’ narratives play in sustaining British militarism
• Examines the power and politics shaping whose stories are heard and whose are side-lined, as veterans’ voices intermingle with those of disparate others
• Offers a detailed conceptual argument about narrative in Critical Military Studies, illustrated through a wide variety of contemporary examples of veteran storytelling
• Includes reflexive analysis of academia’s role in ‘militarising’ research and researchers by privileging certain academic stories about veterans
• Calls for a better social conversation about veterans’ stories, through a commitment to know, engage with, and critique these stories

The Cultural Politics of Veterans’ Narratives investigates the role of veterans’ stories in our collective cultural and political life. Drawing on contemporary narrative theory, it offers a conceptual framework for studying veterans’ narratives, followed by a series of unique empirical chapters dealing with different genres of veteran storytelling, including trauma, transition, culture and identity, and the Afghanistan war memoir. The book questions the British veteran as a political figure, exploring what their stories tell us about the morality and politics of war as well as military life. It also traces how social norms about militarism, nationalism, and patriotism pivot as a result. Caddick considers what the stakes are for veterans as their stories interact with wider cultural narratives, and for society in grappling with the ‘militarist terms of reference’ these stories impart to us.