Experiencing the outbreak of the first world war: A critique of cultural history

Abstract

This article critiques cultural history’s tendency to reduce human experiences to social structures and discourse, neglecting the felt and embodied dimensions of historical events. Using the Augusterlebnis of 1914 as a case study, it challenges revisionist interpretations that dismiss war enthusiasm as propaganda or coercion. Instead, it argues that experiences are pre-discursive, shaped by bodily reactions and immediate perceptions. By overlooking the lived, sensory aspect of historical events, historians risk distorting the past. The article calls for a historiography that integrates both cognitive and embodied experiences to better understand how individuals truly experienced historical moments.