Table of Contents

AcknowledgmentsNotes on ContributorsIntroduction: Memory and Identity: The History of a Relationship3Ch. IIs "Identity" a Useful Cross-Cultural Concept?27Ch. IIIdentity, Heritage, and History41Ch. IIINational Memory in Early Modern England61Ch. IVPublic Memory in an American City: Commemoration in Cleveland74Ch. VThe Museum and the Politics of Social Control in Modern Iraq90Ch. VIThe Historic, the Legendary, and the Incredible: Invented Tradition and Collective Memory in Israel105Ch. VIIThe Politics of Memory: Black Emancipation and the Civil War Monument127Ch. VIIIMemory and Naming in the Great War150Ch. IXThe War Dead and the Gold Star: American Commemoration of the First World War168Ch. XArt, Commerce, and the Production of Memory in France after World War I186Ch. XIBuilding Pasts: Historic Preservation and Identity in Twentieth-Century Germany215Ch. XIICreating the Authentic France: Struggles over French Identity in the First Half of the Twentieth Century239Ch. XIIIBetween Memory and Oblivion: Concentration Camps in German Memory258Index281

About the Author

John R. Gillis is Professor of History at Rutgers University. His most recent book is A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values.

Reviews

"This fascinating book, ... points out how peoples and nations can use national identity to erase the past, to recreate it, to cause it to flourish, to meld it in with the present and the future."--Peter Rollins, Journal of American Culture "Brilliantly conceived and meticulously edited; the contributions are uniformly excellent... No better introduction to the burgeoning field of historical memory is likely to be found."--Merrill D. Peterson, The Journal of American History "Scholars of collective memory, and the sociology of culture more generally, will find much that is provocative and poignant in this collection."--Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Contemporary Sociology "This is a vital book which deserves our utmost attention."--Martin Evans, History Today "Demonstrates that 'memory work' reveals as much about the present as about the past. And that can make extraordinary history."--Christine Schwartz, The Voice Literary Supplement