Never Forget: Souvenirs from the Gulf War and the War on Terror

Juxtaposing American patriotic merchandise with items produced in Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond, the book offers a provocative look at the strange afterlives of conflict, how trauma, pride, grief, and myth are made tangible through souvenirs.

Juxtaposing American patriotic merchandise with items produced in Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond, the book offers a provocative look at the strange afterlives of conflict, how trauma, pride, grief, and myth are made tangible through souvenirs.

From Desert Storm commemorative Pepsi bottles and Saddam Hussein voodoo dolls to 9/11 snow globes and Osama Bin Laden Nokia cases, Never Forget explores how decades of conflict have been commemorated, commercialised, and casually absorbed into everyday life.

Some items were created to stir national pride, others to mock, mourn, or commodify conflict, but together, they form a tangled visual narrative of post-1990s war culture - one where pride and pain coexist and where history is shrink-wrapped and sold. By placing these artefacts side by side, the book reveals the complex, often surreal ways war is packaged for public consumption.