The Great War in European Cultural History. Introduction 1. Catastrophe and consolation: Homecomings:the return of the dead; communities in mourning; spiritualism and the "Lost Generation"; war memorials and the mourning process 2. Cultural codes and languages of mourning: Mythologies of war:films, popular religion, and the business of the sacred; The apocalyptic imagination in art: from anticipation to allegory; the apocalyptic imagination in war literature; war poetry, romanticism, and the return of the sacred, Conclusion