The aftermath of modern conflicts, deeply rooted in political, economic and social structures, leaves pervasive and often recurring legacies of violence. Addressing past injustice is therefore fundamental not only for societal well-being and peace, but also for future conflict prevention. In recent years, truth and reconciliation commissions have become important but contentious mechanisms for conflict resolution and reconciliation. This book fills a significant gap, examining the importance of context within transitional justice and peace-building. It lays out long-term and often unexpected indirect effects of formal and informal justice processes. Offering a novel conceptual understanding of 'procedural reconciliation' on the societal level, it features an in-depth study of commissions in Peru and Sierra Leone, providing a critical analysis of the contribution and challenges facing transitional justice in post-conflict societies. It will be of interest to scholars and students of comparative politics, international relations, human rights and conflict studies.

The 2014 centenary of the outbreak of World War One has resulted in a noticeable increase in the number of publications devoted to this conflict. A question thus arises what makes Conflicting discourses, competing memories: Commemorating The First World War stand out among similar volumes. Indeed, it is the cinematic scope that distinguishes it, as the collected articles comprise a wide spectrum of research, including prose, poetry and film as well as painting dedicated to the Great War. Simultaneously, the book propose an interesting trans-historical purview, combining discussions of the cultural representation of the Great War both from the interwar period and from the contemporary post-memory perspective. The volume as a whole emphasises the significance of the Great War within the context of international cultural memory, as it includes Polish, Romanian, Italian, British, Canadian and American perspectives. From the review by Marzena Sokołowska-Paryż, PhD, DLitt

A rigourous analysis of context in transitional justice, examining the successes and failures of truth and reconciliation commissions in post-conflict settings.

This book considers competing memory politics in European border towns after the First and Second World Wars. In the twentieth century Europe’s borders shifted dramatically in the wake of war, and towns were often moved from one state to another despite their physical locations remaining unchanged. Urban spaces adapted to incorporate new place names, monuments, and requirements, overlaid onto the cultural heritage of previous settlers. This book investigates how the memories of different ethnic groups compete and sometimes contest with each other in the town’s space, using the case studies of Vyborg/Viipuri in present-day Russia, Klaipėda/Memel in Lithuania, Szczecin/Stettin in Poland, Flensburg in Germany, Trieste in Italy, and Rijeka/Fiume in Croatia. The book considers how public memories are built and how old traditions are moulded to new forms in urban settings. Drawing on perspectives from across borderland, urban, and memory studies, this book will be an important resource for researchers with an interest in Europe, and in how urban memories are constructed and contested.

No historical event has left as deep an imprint on America's collective memory as the Civil War. In the war's aftermath, Americans had to embrace and cast off a traumatic past. David Blight explores the perilous path of remembering and forgetting, and reveals its tragic costs to race relations and America's national reunion.

"Competing Memories: The Legacy of Arkansas's Civil War collects the proceedings of the final seminar sponsored by the Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission, which sought to define the lasting impact that the nation's deadliest conflict had on the state by bringing together some of the state's leading historians."-- Amazon.

The third edition of Memory provides students with the most comprehensive introduction to the study of human memory and its applications in the field. Written by three leading experts, this bestselling textbook delivers an authoritative and accessible overview of key topic areas. Each chapter combines breadth of content coverage with a wealth of relevant practical examples, whilst the engaging writing style invites the reader to share the authors’ fascination with the exploration of memory through their individual areas of expertise. Across the text, the scientific theory is connected to a range of real-world questions and everyday human experiences. As a result, this edition of Memory is an essential resource for those interested in this important field and embarking on their studies in the subject. Key features of this edition: it is fully revised and updated to address the latest research, theories, and findings; chapters on learning, organization, and autobiographical memory form a more integrated section on long-term memory and provide relevant links to neuroscience research; it has new material addressing current research into visual short-term and working memory, and links to research on visual attention; it includes content on the state-of-play on working memory training; the chapter on “memory across the lifespan” strengthens the applied emphasis, including the effects of malnutrition in developing nations on cognition and memory. The third edition is supported by a Companion Website providing a range of core resources for students and lecturers.