Introduction: ephemera, war, and the humanities

This introduction lays out the case for Humanities scholars approaching the study of modern war through the lens of ephemera. Noting a range of pertinent scholarship published in the last two decades that draws on ephemera as sources, it explores the twentieth century as a coinciding of mass-produced ephemera and mass-participation warfare that generated its own ephemera in vast numbers. The special issue editors argue that by expanding our definition of ephemera beyond print items and understanding them as a gateway to everyday experience in wartime, scholars of war can gain insight into customarily overlooked or marginalized aspects of war experience. This includes not only state-sponsored warfare but counter-cultural resistance to war and all kinds of civic and armed struggle.