Women and the War Story

In a book that radically and fundamentally revises the way we think about war, Miriam Cooke charts the emerging tradition of women's contributions to what she calls the "War Story," a genre formerly reserved for men. Concentrating on the contemporary literature of the Arab world, Cooke looks at how alternatives to the master narrative challenge the authority of experience and the permission to write. She shows how women who write themselves and their experiences into the War Story undo the masculine contract with violence, sexuality, and glory. There is no single War Story, Cooke concludes; the standard narrative--and with it the way we think about and conduct war--can be changed. As the traditional time, space, organization, and representation of war have shifted, so have ways of describing it. As drug wars, civil wars, gang wars, and ideological wars have moved into neighborhoods and homes, the line between combat zones and safe zones has blurred. Cooke shows how women's stories contest the acceptance of a dyadically structured world and break down the easy oppositions--home vs. front, civilian vs. combatant, war vs. peace, victory vs. defeat--that have framed, and ultimately promoted, war.

ISBN 0520206126   Pages 309 ISBN13 9780520206120 (What's this?)   Volumes 001 Publisher The University Press Group Ltd   Weight (grammes) 714 Imprint University of California Press   Published in CA Format Hardback   Height (mm) 234 Publication date 01 Jan 1997   Width (mm) 158 Library of Congress PN3448.W3C   Spine width (mm) 35 DEWEY 892.73609358   Academic level Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC21

		List of Illustrations
		Acknowledgments
		Introduction		1
1		Subvert the Dominant Paradigm		13
2		Culture Degree Zero		68
3		Silence Is the Real Crime		118
4		Talking Democracy		167
5		Flames of Fire in Qadisiya		220
6		Reimagining Lebanon		267
		Conclusion		291
		Notes		301
		Cited Works		323
		Index		349

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