Abstract
The novelist William Faulkner once observed, “The past is not dead; it is not even past.” Events that took place years or centuries ago directly affect the present by setting the conditions in which today’s events unfold. Moreover, the way we tell stories about the past can sway our thinking about the present. Consider two interpretations of the same event: “The Vietnam War was a disastrous mistake, never to be repeated”; “The Vietnam War was a noble cause; next time we must have the will to win.” These two versions of the same past represent competing histories and have very different implications for the present. Thus history, the meaning we assign to the past, can influence such momentous decisions as whether or not to go to war.
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Suggestions for Further Reading
Barkan, Elazar, The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices (New York: Norton Press, 2000).
Berg, Manfred and Schäfer, Bernd, eds., Historical Justice in International Perspective: How Societies are Trying to Right the Wrongs of the Past (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Hein, Laura and Seiden, Mark, Censoring History: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany, and the United States (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 2000).
Lorey, David E. and Beezley, William H., Genocide, Collective Violence, and Popular Memory: The Politics of Remembrance in the Twentieth Century (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 2002).
Minow, Martha, Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998).
Müller, Jan-Werner, ed., Memory and Power in Post-War Europe: Studies in the Presence of the Past (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Paris, Erna, Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and History (New York and London: Bloomsbury Publishers, 2000).
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© 2005 Max Paul Friedman and Padraic Kenney
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Friedman, M.P., Kenney, P. (2005). Introduction: History in Politics. In: Partisan Histories. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-09150-5_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-09150-5_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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Online ISBN: 978-1-137-09150-5
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