Many books focus on the living and how their lives impacted a certain event or country. Katherine Verdery, an American anthropologist shares her interest with the “lives” of dead bodies. She focuses on how their deaths, their burials and commemoration of their lives itself is a political act. It is a question of sovereignty and national identity of countries when they decided where to bury the corpse, or where they erect statues in remembrance of the person. The book sets out to bring "enchantment" into political accounts of post-socialist transformation (p. 26). She considers the role of the dead in Eastern Europe to be a continuous political transformation and that bodies are “potent vehicles for political meaning” (p.8) as bodies connect
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Verdery’s ‘The Political lives of Dead Bodies’ is the answer to David King's ‘The Commissar Vanishes’. King argues that the persistence of the dead body can easily be used to symbolize, and justify, a simplistic and pessimistic view of national history and fate (such as the "ancient hatreds" evoked by Robert Kaplan’s ‘The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post-Cold War ‘which attempts to explain away the wars of Yugoslav succession, but Verdery rejects both this view and the "rationalistic and dry sense of politics that so many political analysts employ" (p.126). Instead, she doesn’t follow the trends in explaining post-socialist states, she distinguish that the politics of symbolism should not buys into nationalistic rhetoric nor dismiss it entirely as irrelevant. Thus, it can then be said Verdery attempts to find a middle ground in her book as she recognises that culture and identity rely on nationalistic history. As such, by not taking on an extreme nationalistic account of history nor disregarding it entirely, Verdery’s book seems to offer a more balance of opinion, which is supported by the testaments she acquires during her research. By doing so, we are able to understand that …show more content…
Only then will we be able to make sense of any political change or turmoil a country faces. Even if she only focuses on Eastern Europe, I believe following her “cosmic” approach to the subject it can be used to understand in greater depth the territorial claims of countries who have newly separated but share a similar sense of culture. For instance, when looking at post-colonial India and the emergence of Gandhi as a great freedom fighter, many Indian subcontinents and newly formed countries that used to be a part of India do not recognise or offer any solidarity with him. This is because when national identity is raised, they (Bengalis and Punjabis) believe that theirs was mostly subdued in the making of India. Therefore, the theoretical approach may have been intended to explain post-socialist Eastern Europe, but on a global scale there are many resonances that Verdery’s book offers. Ultimately, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies is a great book that offers an easy, sophisticated read into the emergence of post-socialist Eastern Europe and its political changes. By focusing on how dead bodies are “potent vehicles” she is able to analytically argue how the past or future removals and transformations of corpses,
Verdery’s ‘The Political lives of Dead Bodies’ is the answer to David King's ‘The Commissar Vanishes’. King argues that the persistence of the dead body can easily be used to symbolize, and justify, a simplistic and pessimistic view of national history and fate (such as the "ancient hatreds" evoked by Robert Kaplan’s ‘The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post-Cold War ‘which attempts to explain away the wars of Yugoslav succession, but Verdery rejects both this view and the "rationalistic and dry sense of politics that so many political analysts employ" (p.126). Instead, she doesn’t follow the trends in explaining post-socialist states, she distinguish that the politics of symbolism should not buys into nationalistic rhetoric nor dismiss it entirely as irrelevant. Thus, it can then be said Verdery attempts to find a middle ground in her book as she recognises that culture and identity rely on nationalistic history. As such, by not taking on an extreme nationalistic account of history nor disregarding it entirely, Verdery’s book seems to offer a more balance of opinion, which is supported by the testaments she acquires during her research. By doing so, we are able to understand that …show more content…
Only then will we be able to make sense of any political change or turmoil a country faces. Even if she only focuses on Eastern Europe, I believe following her “cosmic” approach to the subject it can be used to understand in greater depth the territorial claims of countries who have newly separated but share a similar sense of culture. For instance, when looking at post-colonial India and the emergence of Gandhi as a great freedom fighter, many Indian subcontinents and newly formed countries that used to be a part of India do not recognise or offer any solidarity with him. This is because when national identity is raised, they (Bengalis and Punjabis) believe that theirs was mostly subdued in the making of India. Therefore, the theoretical approach may have been intended to explain post-socialist Eastern Europe, but on a global scale there are many resonances that Verdery’s book offers. Ultimately, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies is a great book that offers an easy, sophisticated read into the emergence of post-socialist Eastern Europe and its political changes. By focusing on how dead bodies are “potent vehicles” she is able to analytically argue how the past or future removals and transformations of corpses,