War Memorialization and Nation-Building in Twentieth-Century Southeast Asia [Hardcover]

This book?explores how three Southeast Asian countries the Philippines, Thailand, and Singaporehave utilized war memorialization in their nation-building efforts.?It will be of interest to researchers studying Southeast Asian Studies, History, and International Relations.

John Lee Candelaria is Assistant Professor at Hiroshima University, Japan.

Introduction; Chapter 1: War memory, heritage, and nation-building in Southeast Asia; Chapter 2: War in the Filipino national imagery; Chapter 3: The military and the monarchy in Thailands war monuments; Chapter 4: Singapores war memorials and the Singapore Story; Chapter 5: Remembering and forgetting wars in Southeast Asia; Conclusion; Index

War Memorialization and Nation-Building in Twentieth-Century Southeast Asia explores how three Southeast Asian countries the Philippines, Thailand, and Singaporehave utilized war memorialization in their nation-building efforts.

Set against the backdrop of colonialism, world wars, independence struggles, and the Cold War, the book interrogates how these nations war experiences have shaped national myths and legitimized state narratives. Examining the role of state-sponsored monuments and memorials in these countries, the author sheds light on their impact on national identity formation, state legitimacy, and citizen unity. Through these three distinct case studies, the book highlights the complexity and diversity of memorialization practices within the region, their intersections with state agendas, and the international context that backdropped the regions nation-building projects. Utilizing war monuments and memorials as its primary data source, the author explains the temporal dynamics of peace and conflict and the significance of tangible history in these nations. He criticallƒ!