War and Childhood in the Era of the Two World Wars

This innovative book reveals children's experiences and how they became victims and actors during the twentieth century's biggest conflicts.

Written for scholars and the general public alike, this volume takes a global look at how modern societies imagined childhood as a space of sheltered existence, while at the same time mobilizing their children to help fight their wars and turning them into both victims and actors in the twentieth century's greatest conflicts.The histories of modern war and childhood were the result of competing urgencies. According to ideals of childhood widely accepted throughout the world by 1900, children should have been protected, even hidden, from conflict and danger. Yet at a time when modern ways of childhood became increasingly possible for economic, social, and political reasons, it became less possible to fully protect them in the face of massive industrialized warfare driven by geopolitical rivalries and expansionist policies. Taking a global perspective, the chapters in this book examine a wide range of experiences and places. In addition to showing how the engagement of children and youth with war differed according to geography, technology, class, age, race, gender, and the nature of the state, they reveal how children acquired agency during the twentieth century's greatest conflicts.