Although few could define it, “civilian morale” emerged as one of the 20th century’s deadliest discourses.  In its name, millions of civilians were bombed and starved, as warring nations sought to "break the morale" of the enemy's civil population in Europe and East Asia by air raids and food blockades.  From World War I through World War II, ideas and practices relating to morale circulated rapidly around the world in an intensely transnational process.

Sheldon Garon is the Nissan Professor of History and East Asian Studies at Princeton University. A specialist in modern Japanese history, he also writes transnational/global history. Awarded a European Research Council Advanced Grant in 2024, he will direct a five-year collaborative project on "The Global War on Civilians, 1905-1945." His publications include The State and Labor in Modern Japan (1987), Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life (Princeton, 1987), Beyond Our Means: Why America Spends While the World Saves (2012), and with Patricia L. Maclachlan, eds., The Ambivalent Consumer: Questioning Consumption in East Asia and the West (2006).

Light refreshments served. Free and open to the public. In-person only. RSVP to: cmeador@austin.utexas.edu.