Heroes for More Than One Day: Commemorating War

The commemoration of war is almost as old as war itself - and as war has changed so too has its commemoration. This article explores some of the changes, from the emergence of vernacular forms of memorialization to the process by which objects or practices take on commemorative meaning or, alternately, lose that commemorative meaning. Commercialization has had a significant impact on memorialization and so too has the advent of virtual commemoration, especially through social media. It concludes by surveying some of the challenges that historians of war commemoration may face in the Internet age, even in the face of some striking similarities in the nature of war memorialization.