Dealing with Dark Pasts - 9781009507400

Dealing with Dark PastsA European History of Auto-Critical Memory in Global Perspective\nAuthor(s): Itay Lotem\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9781009507400, 978-1009507400\nSynopsis\nSince the end of the Second World War, the political rationale to remember the past has shifted from previous focus on states' victories, as these began commemorating their own historical crimes. This Element follows the rise of 'auto-critical memory', or the politics of remembrance of a country's own dark past. The Element explores the idea's gestation in West Germany after the Second World War, its globalisation through initiatives of 'transitional justice' in the 1990s, and present-day debates about how to remember the colonial past. It follows different case studies that span the European continent including Germany, France, Britain, Poland and Serbia and places these in a global context that traces the circula.