The Virtuous Wehrmacht: Crafting the Myth of the German Soldier on the Eastern Front, 1941-1944 By David A. Harrisville. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2021. Pp. 328. Hardback $34.95. ISBN: 978-1501760044.

Abstract

“vignette” and “Verortnung” (location). The former discusses exemplary artefacts or representations of global thinking, such as the British propaganda film World of Plenty (1943), the New York spherical monument Unisphere (1964), McArthur’s Universal Corrective Map of the World (1979), or Ökolopoly, the 1983 board game. The latter discusses the changing cultural meanings of the “world” in each period of time, from “one world,” which needs to be healed, in the mid-1940s (51), to “many worlds” in the 1990s (530). As Kuchenbuch states, “when people spoke and still speak about globality, it does not have to mean the same thing” (569). The strength as well as the weakness of this monograph lies in its rich and often confusing structure. On the one hand, it proposes a new historical methodology that manages to deal at once with material, social, cultural, and political aspects of history, while trying to avoid the lacunas of each type of history. As a result, it should almost be viewed as an experiment in historiography. On the other hand, the structure is not very easy to navigate, to say the least, and is one of the causes of the book’s length. For example, chapter 4, titled, “A Media-Historical Intermediate Step” (“Medienhistorischer Zwischenschritt”) is an unexpected methodological interlude which reviews theories in media studies and critical cartography. Breaks in the general flow of Kuchenbuch’s historical narrative make reading the book a challenge. In addition, the chapter and section headings are not very informative, since many are quotes from historical sources and thus cannot be understood before reading the relevant sections. As a result, the book is better read as a unified whole, from start to finish. Despite these issues, Welt-Bildner is an impressive interdisciplinary monograph that will be useful to anyone interested in the history of globalism (and glocalism), the history of twentieth-century media, Peters and Fuller, and new and innovative forms of historiography.