Gaku Iwai
Japan
Re-reading Movements in European History in the Social and Political Contexts of 1910s Britain
I would like to analyze Movements in European History by putting it into the social and political contexts of the time when it was produced, that is, during and after the First World War. Curiously enough, the episodes of the Great War were not included in Movements, even when Lawrence was asked to bring the narrative up to date as an Epilogue. However, the contemporary ideologies on the Great War are inscribed in the text.
>Apart from Movements, several history books were written by novelists from the 1910s to the early 20s: A School History of England by Rudyard Kipling (1911; with C. R. L. Fletcher, who was to refuse Lawrence's "Epilogue" later), A Short History of England by G. K. Chesterton (1917) and Outline of History by H. G. Wells (a few months before Movements). I shall compare Movements in European History with these works in terms of education, patriotism, the Great War and the concept of history, and examine how Lawrence's treatment of wars and his apocalyptic vision were influenced by, or differed from, the contemporary views on the war.