Overview

The Second World War was filled with many terrible crimes, such as genocide, forced migration and labour, human-made famine, forced sterilizations, and dispossession, that occurred on an unprecedented scale. Authenticity and Victimhood after the Second World War in the twentieth century in the aftermath of these experiences. The collection explores the concept of authenticity through an examination of victims' histories and the construction of victimhood in Europe and East Asia. Chapters consider how notions of historical authenticity influence the self-identification and public recognition of a given social group, the tensions arising from individual and group experiences of victimhood, and the resulting, sometimes divergent, interpretation of historical events. Drawing from case studies on topics including the Holocaust, the siege of Leningrad, American air raids on Japan, and forced migrations from Eastern Europe, Authenticity and Victimhood after the Second World War demonstrates the trend towards a victim-centred collective memory as well as the interplay of memory politics and public commemorative culture.

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9781487528218

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Reviews

A wide-ranging set of essays that not only reveals the historical threads woven into the dominant victimhood narratives of World War II in Europe and Asia but also provides astute analysis of the global fabric of collective memory in what the authors call our 'post-heroic age.' Fascinating. - Carol Gluck, George Sansom Professor of History, Columbia University This thought-provoking and wide-ranging collection of essays on post-1945 Europe and East Asia is very welcome. The rich case studies with their careful focus on specific domestic political contexts should ensure that this volume will be widely read. I anticipate that its publication will stimulate further comparative research into memory and constructions of victimhood in the modern world. - Peter Gatrell, Professor of History, University of Manchester This volume makes an important contribution to the study of memory culture by examining the shift from a celebration of heroism to the authentication of victimhood after the Second World War in Japan and Germany that has ironically made the victim into a new hero. Its suggestive case studies compare European with East Asian experiences through analyses of scholarly accounts as well as media representations of controversies about genocide, war crimes, and forced migration. - Konrad H. Jarausch, Lurcy Professor of European Civilization, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

"""This thought-provoking and wide-ranging collection of essays on post-1945 Europe and East Asia is very welcome. The rich case studies with their careful focus on specific domestic political contexts should ensure that this volume will be widely read. I anticipate that its publication will stimulate further comparative research into memory and constructions of victimhood in the modern world.""--Peter Gatrell, Professor of History, University of Manchester ""This volume makes an important contribution to the study of memory culture by examining the shift from a celebration of heroism to the authentication of victimhood after the Second World War in Japan and Germany that has ironically made the victim into a new hero. Its suggestive case studies compare European with East Asian experiences through analyses of scholarly accounts as well as media representations of controversies about genocide, war crimes, and forced migration.""--Konrad H. Jarausch, Lurcy Professor of European Civilization, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ""A wide-ranging set of essays that not only reveals the historical threads woven into the dominant victimhood narratives of World War II in Europe and Asia but also provides astute analysis of the global fabric of collective memory in what the authors call our 'post-heroic age.' Fascinating.""--Carol Gluck, George Sansom Professor of History, Columbia University"

Author Information

Randall Hansen is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto and director of the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the Munk School. Achim Saupe is the director of the Leibniz Research Alliance for Historical Authenticity at the Centre for Contemporary History (ZZF). Andreas Wirsching is the director of the Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ). Daqing Yang is an associate professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University.

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