Famine food of vegetal origin consumed in the Netherlands during World War II

Background: Periods of extreme food shortages during war force people to eat food that they normally do not consider edible. The last time that countries in Western Europe experienced severe scarcities was during World War II. The so-called Dutch famine or Hunger Winter (1944-1945) made at least 25,000 victims. The Dutch government took action by opening soup kitchens and providing information on wild plants and other famine food sources in "wartime cookbooks." The Dutch wartime diet has never been examined from an ethnobotanical perspective. Methods: We interviewed 78 elderly Dutch citizens to verify what they remembered of the consumption of vegetal and fungal famine food during World War II by them and their close surroundings. We asked whether they experienced any adverse effects from consuming famine food plants and how they knew they were edible. We identified plant species mentioned during interviews by their local Dutch names and illustrated field guides and floras. We hypothesized that people living in rural areas consumed more wild species than urban people. A Welch t test was performed to verify whether the number of wild and cultivated species differed between urban and rural citizens. Results: A total number of 38 emergency food species (14 cultivated and 21 wild plants, three wild fungi) were mentioned during interviews. Sugar beets, tulip bulbs, and potato peels were most frequently consumed. Regularly eaten wild species were common nettle, blackberry, and beechnuts. Almost one third of our interviewees explicitly described to have experienced extreme hunger during the war. People from rural areas listed significantly more wild species than urban people. The number of cultivated species consumed by both groups was similar. Negative effects were limited to sore throats and stomachache from the consumption of sugar beets and tulip bulbs. Knowledge on the edibility of famine food was obtained largely by oral transmission; few people remembered the written recipes in wartime cookbooks. Conclusion: This research shows that 71years after the Second World War, knowledge on famine food species, once crucial for people's survival, is still present in the Dutch society. The information on famine food sources supplied by several institutions was not distributed widely. For the necessary revival of famine food knowledge during the 1940s, people needed to consult a small group of elders. Presumed toxicity was a major reason given by our participants to explain why they did not collect wild plants or mushrooms during the war

The conceptual origins of information warfare

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:6217.32465(1999/4) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Sad shires and no man’s land: First World War frames of reference in the British media representation of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars

The focus of this article is the manner in which media representations in Britain of the 21st century conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan drew upon the terms, allusions and imagery of the First World War. The application of these visual and textual frames of reference has been used to demonstrate the failings of government, the need for national support or the validation of anti-war perspectives. Through the use of a critical discourse analysis, this assessment will highlight how the war of 1914–1918 is used within contemporary Britain as a vehicle for political and social commentary upon the actions of authority. Despite being fought at the outset of the last century, the newspaper coverage of the British Army’s operation in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrates how the First World War still goes on within sections of British society

‘The Great Movement to Resist America and Assist Korea’: how Beijing sold the Korean War

The Chinese entered the Korean War one year after the creation of the People's Republic of China. Given the considerable economic, social and political problems facing the new state after decades of foreign occupation and civil war, how did the new Communist Government of China persuade both the people and the military to intervene in a foreign war? Described as the 'Great Movement to Resist America and Assist Korea' and an opportunity to 'Beat American Arrogance', the propaganda promoted the Korean War as a chance to challenge the US presence in Asia, and project China's rise as a regional, if not a world power. More important, the propaganda indicates the war was used to strengthen the Communist Party's domestic support and legitimacy, mobilize the population around the party's agenda (especially its vision of a 'new' China), and help consolidate the party's authority in the immediate aftermath of the civil war. Focusing primarily on posters, this article chronicles the development of propaganda themes and methods against the background of first Chinese hesitation to enter the Korean War and then acceptance of a prolonged war by the end of the first year. © The Author(s)

Empathy and the landscape of conflict

In early August 2018, the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery (TRAG) in Queensland opened a group exhibition titled Landscape and Memory: Frank Hurley and a Nation Imagined. The artworks created by the eight invited artists responded to official war photographer Frank Hurley’s iconic images taken on the Western Front and in the Middle East in 1917 and 1918. The approach adopted by the artists was framed by the work of Samuel Hynes who argued that though the First World War was without doubt the major political and military event of the age, it was also a 'great imaginative event', one which 'altered the ways in which men and women thought not only about war but about the world, and about culture and its expressions' (Hynes, 1990, p. xi). This imagining is a version of the war 'that confirms a set of attitudes, an idea of what the war was and what it meant' (Hynes, 1990, p. xi). Such an historical imagining is not, however, synonymous with falsehood; instead, it refers to the layers of cultural meaning that over time encase an historical event (Badsey, 2009). Such an historical imagining is not, however, synonymous with falsehood; instead, it refers to the layers of cultural meaning that over time encase an historical event (Badsey, 2009). This chapter therefore explores the artists’ contemporary reimagining of Hurley’s photographs and a desire to create art that was empathetic to the artist’s original intentions yet able to stand alone as distinct works of art that interrogate the place of war and landscape in the Australian psyche