Zero hours: conceptual insecurities and new beginnings in the interwar period

To cut off time and seal away the past, to proclaim a new beginning in the present and project a better future onto tomorrow - and thus to make history - is a key signature of modern social, political and cultural discourses. In this book, this practice is represented through the metaphor of the Zero Hour, which alludes to the wish to rebuild the past in the face of a crisis-ridden present characterised by growing conceptual insecurity, hoping for a more stable future. Indeed, the ever-new construction of our past, sequenced and ordered in explanatory narratives, bears witness to a future that