New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. xiv, 286 pp. (B&W photos.) US$28.00, cloth. ISBN 9780197575352.
There is no shortage of journalists who’ve turned to producing engaging readable scholarship borne out of personal experience and journalistic curiosity in attempts to understand “why things are the way they are.” In recent years, academic publisher Oxford University Press (OUP) has added to this genre, straddling the divide between researchers and general readers, by publishing Shawn Walker’s examination of Putin’s use of history and memories of the Great War to renew Russian pride (Shawn Walker, The Long Hangover: Putin’s New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past, New York: Oxford University Press, 2018) and Peter Martin’s careful piecing together of interviews and published memoirs to capture the historical development of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Peter Martin, China’s Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy, New York: Oxford University Press, 2021). Katie Stallard’s Dancing on Bones is a further addition from OUP to the journalist-turned-author roster, which examines state-led historical narratives and the relevance of understanding the uses of history for today’s domestic and foreign politics.
A distinguishing feature of this book is that rather than taking one case, it takes the three cases of China, Russia, and North Korea to explore how history is deployed in the production of nationalism. The latent analytical thread tying the cases together is the influence of the Soviet propaganda system and present-day autocratic state, while the manifest linkage is the author’s experience as foreign correspondent for Sky News, which prompted a “multi-year quest to understand how autocracts exploit history to stay in power” (6). Written in a highly readable style that avoids jargon and theory and includes first-hand accounts, Stallard’s book is constructed around 10 easily digestible short chapters plus an introduction and conclusion.
Chapters 1–4 examine the evolution of state narratives around the Korean War and World War II for North Korea, China, and the USSR. In North Korea’s case, the examination is the Soviet propagandists’ embellishments to the figure of Kim Il-sung to his leadership and the creation of the US as eternal enemy based on alleged war crimes. A good point is made that the myth around Kim’s revolutionary activities grew and even outlasted the Soviet regime which gave birth to it.
Chapters 5–7 look at domestic motivations that propelled the ongoing use of historical narratives to gain popular political support and national cohesion: for China the push towards patriotic education post-1989 Tiananmen, for Russia the collapse of the USSR and Putin’s return to memories of the Great War to instill pride after a period of uncertainty, and for North Korea, the amplification of the hero cult and by association assist the transition of leadership and power within the Kim family from father to son.
It is the final part of the book—chapter 8 through to the conclusion—where arguably the greatest interest of the book lies. These chapters focus on the contemporary batch of leaders and how for Xi, Putin, and Kim, “experience has taught these men the power of appealing to history and, therefore, the importance of keeping it under tight control” (216). These chapters explain the mechanisms that encourage internalization of nationalist sentiments for the generations removed from the traumatic events themselves. From the reinvigoration of museums to marches, the use of censorship—real and self-regulated—and the teaching of history in the education system, these chapters vividly explore how historical events continue to be a resource of power.
Most valuable here are the parallels between Chinese and Russian inadvertent dissident historians. Making use of interviews and published secondary sources, the author explores historians under pressure from both the state and self-appointed guardians of the “glorious” narratives of the past. These historians came under fire by calling into question mythic hero wartime stories or looking into darker aspects of history. One example from Russia is the director of Russia’s State Archives Sergei Mironenko’s release of a 1948 original investigation into an embellished wartime story that had been turned into a contemporary blockbuster film, Panfilov’s 28. The report revealed that this wartime story had largely come from the imagination of a journalist. But for bringing this interesting historical twist back into the public eye, Mironenko faced criticism and subsequently lost his position. This, and other Russian cases, resonates with the social media attack and then career ostracization of Chinese academic Hong Zhenkuai for his research which questioned another story for schoolchildren—The Five Heroes of Langya Mountain—a tale of self-sacrifice by a small group of CCP soldiers in drawing away the Japanese Army during the war. Told side by side in the same book, these cases show the similarities in techniques for monopolizing the narrative of wartime history in both contemporary China and Russia. The state gives a nudge and encouragement here, a restriction or even a law there, and the emotions around history are put into play to retain a preferred version of the past which shapes the views around the politics of the present.
Ultimately, while this book covers how myths take hold and form an inheritance for power, it is about the contemporary era and the uses of history for Putin, Xi, and Kim. It helps general readers to understand why there is support for policies under their leadership: for North Korea’s nuclear programme, Putin’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine, and continued support for the Chinese Communist Party as long as China continues to rise to great power status. All in all, however, without any theory and the heavy reliance on the analysis from other authors mixed with reportage style, I feel that the book will date quickly. It is highly relevant for understanding this particular historical moment, and certainly these leaders will be in power for a while, but it does not offer the frame nor the analysis for taking the insights drawn from looking at the three cases together further.
The University of Nottingham Ningbo, Ningbo