A live prisoner of war may attract sheer animosity, or worse, but the remains of a dead combatant, by definition not exuding any threat, may induce a more civilised reaction.

The inevitable deaths in a society at war have been examined by Professor Tim Grady. His study is not one of diplomatic outcomes, but rather what was done because of such deaths.

His first example of the phenomenon was the deaths of four members of a German bomber, shot down after a raid in July 1941, and their burial, with respect, in a churchyard at Montrose.

That was only one of many individual incidents. Local people protested at the disturbance of the dead, often years after their deaths, and ties between the nearest relatives of the deceased and those who cared for the graves were severed.

This concentration nationally of the remains of the deceased allowed for an insular public memory of war by removing any local signs of those who had been the enemy.

This interesting study by Professor Grady, by reference to many German sources, amounts to a study of the politics of death, given the policy choices made by government representatives.

There were also, at specific times, clear propaganda and symbolic benefits from formal or state funerals, and that was certainly so in the 1930s, with the changing politics. There were, thus, competing assertions of ownership of the remains of the deceased with decisions being taken administratively that did not necessarily accord with family preferences.

There were legal implications: first, at least one example is given of solicitors for a family seeking to challenge a general decision of the appropriate government agency. Assertions of authority based on a Cabinet decision were then challenged on the basis that such a purported source did not amount to statutory authority.

Secondly, many of the dead prisoners in, for example, Scotland had died by their own hand in captivity or while billeted outside formal captivity in camps or prisons. One of these deaths is known to have resulted in a fatal accident inquiry, in 1947, and this would appear to be a neglected area of the investigation of deaths.

Death scholarship is extensive, and this excellent study shows the underlying and controverted issues around the recovery and non-repatriation of the remains of the deceased.

The study, by implication, also shows aspect of how once a conflict has been concluded, someone has to clear up the resulting mess, and that pragmatism is simply not good enough.

Burying the Enemy: The Story of Those who Cared for the Dead in Two World Wars by Tim Grady. Published by Yale University Press, 384pp, £25.