Explore the vast range of titles available.

A narrative is generally a story about a certain topic that has a plot with clear starting and ending points, providing sequential and causal coherence. When a group such as an ethnic group or a state adopts a narrative to be the true representation of the past, it becomes part of the group's collective memory. Collective memory is a category that includes five types of submemories. First is popular memory, defined as representations of the past held by the society's members and best manifested in responses to public opinion surveys. Second is official memory, the representations of the past the formal institutions of the group. Third is autobiographical memory, which is that of the people who directly experienced the events, typically demonstrated through their memoirs and oral histories. Fourth is historical memory, the way the research community views the past in its studies. Fifth is cultural memory, the way the society represents its past through newspaper articles, memorials, monuments, films, and buildings, among other items or products.

In an interview, Stephen Kinzer, US author, journalist and academic, talked about Rwanda. He said that Rwanda's story is quite remarkable. In 1994, Rwanda and Somalia were probably the two most ruined countries in the world. There was every reason to believe they would have the same fate going forward; they had been decimated by conflict, there was a great leadership vacuum, all institutions had fallen apart. Rwanda is the only country in the world about which development experts and human rights specialists have such different opinions. Now, the threats that Rwanda faces, principally because the former genocide army is now poised right on their border in eastern Congo, certainly has been a factor in leading Pres Paul Kagame to be especially vigilant about dissent and debate within Rwanda. Success can be measured in preventing conflict, or open hostility and violence. But it's much more difficult to measure changes inside the human soul. Essentially, the Rwandan government has decreed that there shouldn't be any more talk about ethnicity.

It has been a long time since any major politician has used a memory-based argument to make, let alone win, a political point in a major policy debate outside of explicit commemorations or anniversaries. Joschka Fischer was probably the last, vis a vis Kosovo and the 2004 EU eastern enlargement. Helmut Kohl has reiterated his older positions that everything must be done to save the euro, but such an argument experiences little resonance today. Gerhard Schroder and Angela Merkel have not prominently used memory or history-based justifications for most policy decisions. This is not to say that these politicians have forgotten or repressed such memory concerns. Certainly on a rhetorical level, recent German leaders are affected by such memories and will continue to support the culture of contrition and many of its tangible policy consequences. Returning to foreign policy specifically, if there is one clear trend over the last decade or so, it is the development of a foreign policy not explicitly dominated by the concerns of memory.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has shown himself to be a staunch defender of the US-Japanese relationship and of US interests, resolved to place Japan's Self Defense Forces at US disposal and to construct large new military facilities for them on US as well as Japanese soil. Yet he refuses to accommodate US pressures over identity and history or to concede that there is anything to negotiate with neighboring countries over territorial disputes. As a result, Japan faces intensifying friction not only with its neighbors but also with the US. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel spoke of the significant challenge the US faced in helping Japan to deal with historical issues that create tensions, and even estrangement sometimes, with its neighbors. A sovereign nation would never seek help in deciding how to interpret its own history, however, and in this case, reflecting the peculiarity of the US-Japan relationship, by helping Russel appeared to mean something more akin to exacting submission.

Museums of history and contemporary culture face many challenges in the modern age. One is how to react to processes of Europeanization and globalization, which require more cross-border cooperation and different ways of telling stories for visitors. This book investigates how museums exhibit Europe. Based on research in nearly 100 museums across the Continent and interviews with cultural policy makers and museum curators, it studies the growing transnational activities of state institutions, societal organizations, and people in the museum field such as attempts to Europeanize collection policy and collections as well as different strategies for making narratives more transnational like telling stories of European integration as shared history and discussing both inward and outward migration as a common experience and challenge. The book thus provides fascinating insights into a fast-changing museum landscape in Europe with wider implications for cultural policy and museums in other world regions.