It takes a great war to create great art

"To millions who were born long after it, the Second World War rises more frequently to mind than Iraq, the ozone layer or the European constitution. Barely a week passes without some historical revelation or political row, the unearthing of archives or the unbuttoning of ugly prejudices. As one of history's few clear-cut conflicts between absolute evil and relative good, the Hitler war endures as a template for human conduct in a new century when the memories of Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Biafra, Angola and Chechnya have been all but obliterated.

"There are important cultural reasons for its persistence. This was, historically, the first continental war to be waged in the age of broadcasting. Radio and film conveyed its actuality and artists quickly converted its sounds and images into creative work. Art was a battlefront in itself. Dictators harnessed it to their propaganda machines while the democracies unintentionally inspired a spontaneous cultural renaissance. Apart from the Napoleonic wars, which gave us the Eroica Symphony, the works of Goya and ultimately War and Peace, no conflict has produced so much art and of such elevated quality as the Second World War."

THE WRITER then goes on to tally the great works that sprang from this war. There are a number of novels that came out of the Vietnam war, and Jarhead came from the First Gulf War, but he's right: they produced nothing like the Second World did. No painting, no music except some protest songs. Not even 9/11 has produced anything to talk of. Does that mean these events are not all that world-changing?