Why the Blitz Spirit is the wrong metaphor for fighting COVID-19
Is anyone else wondering why, in the midst of a pandemic, we are encouraged again and again to look back, not to past pandemics or other public health crises for lessons, but instead to draw inspiration from Britain in the Second World War. Specifically, the Britain of 1940, the year of the retreat from Dunkirk, of the Battle of Britain and of the first months of the Blitz.
In this talk Professor Lucy Noakes, a historian of the experience and memory of the Second World War argues that if we must look back to the Second World War then it is 1942, not 1940 or VE Day in 1945, that we should be examining. Tracing the memory of the Second World War from the moment of its creation during the war itself to the culture wars that centred around Brexit, this talk argues that 1942 in fact provides a far better model for both understanding our current crisis and for thinking about the society we want to see after this has passed, than other, perhaps more dramatic, moments in the war.
Please register in advance for this lecture