Collective Remembering and the Making of Political Culture

Collective memory can make and break political culture around the world.&&&160;Representations and reinterpretations of the past intersect with actions that shape the future. A nation's political culture emerges from complex layers of institutional and individual responses to historical events. Society changes and is changed by these layers of memory over time. Understanding them gives us insight into where we are today.&&&160;Encompassing examples from colonization and decolonization, revolving around the critical junctures of the world wars, this book illustrates how collective memory is produced and organized, through commemoration, through monuments, and through individuals sharing stories. Using concrete examples from around the world, James H. Liu shows how different disciplines can come together through shared concepts like narratives and generational memories to provide mutually enriching perspectives on how political culture is made, and how it changes.

'Building on a lifetime of work, James Liu presents a penetrating exploration of the ways in which collective memories serve as symbolic resources for understanding and interpreting the complex world we live in. He carefully and insightfully demonstrates how the study of collective memory can help us understand the more perplexing crises of our day. A must-read for any student of collective memory, or, indeed, for anyone interested in history and politics.' William Hirst, Malcolm B. Smith Professor of Psychology, The New School for Social Research, USA

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