Realms of Memory

Something novel happened after the Second World War.  Rather than just celebrating past victories or heroic defeats, nations began to memorialize their most shameful crimes and misdeeds.  From the Holocaust to the slave trade, memory studies expert Itay Lotem argues that West Germany and France pioneered this new form of auto-critical, perpetrator memory.  How auto-critical memory gained global re...

The army in Peru has long been held in high regard as the defender of Peruvian independence and the standard bearer for its large indigenous population.  Yet in the investigations that followed the two-decade conflict with the Maoist Shining Path insurgency, Peru’s security forces were found responsible for 36% of the deaths.  Beyond the revelations of massacres, torture, gendered violence, corrup...

The civil war in Peru is often lumped together indiscriminately with neighboring conflicts in Latin America.  University of Victoria historian Cynthia Milton argues that we need to take into account the very different nature of the violence in Peru as well as the centrality of the military in Peruvian society to fully grasp how the conflict has been remembered.  In Conflicted Memory: Military Cult...

The Holocaust is at the heart of German national memory culture.  From commemorative events organized on the floor of the parliament to mandatory instruction in public schools, «never again » is a much repeated refrain echoed throughout German society.  How then is it possible that Germans are unlearning the lessons of the Holocaust?  This is the contention of historian Juergen Zimmerer, renouned...

How singular was the Holocaust?  Historian Juergen Zimmerer sparked a firestorm of controversy in Germany for suggesting continuity between the colonial past and the Holocaust.  Any suggestion that the Holocaust needs to be understood within a broader framework that goes beyond antisemitism and the Nazi era strikes at the heart of the German national memory culture.  Drawing from his recently publ...

Jeff Olick has been one of the central figures in the making and shaping of memory studies, a burgeoning, multidisciplinary field of study drawing scholars from around the globe.  A professor of sociology and history at the University Virginia, Charlotte, I had the opportunity to engage with Jeff in a wide ranging conversation.  We talked about how memory studies and the work of Maurice Halbwachs...

Few scholars have influenced memory studies as much as Jeff Olick.  Professor of Sociology and History at the University of Virginia, Charlotte, Jeff was co-founder and past co-president of the Memory Studies Association, the leading association for this burgeoning, interdisciplinary field of studies. His books on Germany offer pathbreaking insights into how the country’s political elites attempte...

Since the 1990s countries around the world have been building a new type of history museum.  Rather than glorifying the nation, these museums are purpose-built to spotlight the darkest and most shameful chapters in national histories.  They are inspired by a post-Holocaust, “never again,” human rights memorialization culture anchored in the belief that nations can and should learn from past wrongs...

Despite the frenzied debates about what history we should be teaching in the United States, until recently most African American and mainstream history museums have continued to tell an uplifting story of racial progress and achievement.  The United States has lagged behind museums in many other parts of the world which now give greater attention to recognizing past wrongs and injustices.  In the...

How can we understand a problem so vast and complex as homelessness?  After spending her career writing about the stereotyped and misunderstood, writer Alison Owings was eager to take on the challenge.  While this was an omnipresent reality in her hometown of San Francisco, Alison had no idea where to begin.  She found her answer on one of the Tenderloin Walking Tours named after the neighborhood...

The problem of homelessness in the United States has reached epic proportions.  But how can we understand such a complex issue affecting so many different kinds of people?  Writer Alison Owings decided to take on the challenge by exploring the memories of one man, Del Seymour.   Del’s story is one of triumph and redemption.  He went from living on the streets of San Francisco to becoming known as...

The challenge of any documentary director with a mission is to make the viewer care. What makes the 2026 Oscar award winning documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin resonate so powerfully is the love and honesty that inspires it.  This is a production that showcases the unvarnished horrors of Putin’s militarization of Russia following the start of the war in Ukraine through the eyes of one man, Pavel...

The horrors Russia has been inflicting on Ukraine have sadly become a familiar sight on the daily news.  Far less attention has been paid to the consequences of the war for the Russian people.  This is the subject of the 2026 Oscar award winning documentary, Mr. Nobody Against Putin.  It is the story of an ordinary teacher who risks everything to show the world how the war and Putin’s education po...

Americans are divided over most things and the past is no different.  We disagree about whether to celebrate or question the past.  We’re at odds over whether history indoctrinates or educates and whether young minds are harmed or helped by exposure to the complexity of the past.  Historian John Garrison Marks argues that the real problem is that Americans dislike ambiguity.  There is no better ex...

Americans have been struggling with the memory of George Washington since his death.  Should we celebrate his role in the creation of the nation or lament that he actively participated in and profited from the business of slave owning?  Should we underscore that he freed his own slaves in his last will and testament or highlight that he never took a public position against slavery during his lifet...

99% of Poland’s pre-war Jewish population, the largest in Europe, perished during the Holocaust.  Polish native and Canadian historian Jan Grabowski argues this death toll is inconceivable without the collusion of the general Polish population.  Yet for decades Polish authorities have denied all responsibility.  Instead, they have used the considerable resources of the state to posit that Poles su...

Deeply flawed accounts of the Holocaust persist throughout Central and Eastern Europe. University of Ottawa historian Jan Grabowski argues that nowhere are the distortions of the Holocaust more glaring than in Poland.  The almost complete eradication of the Jewish population in Poland, the second largest in the world, was simply not possible without the active and willing participation of Polish g...

Fifty years after Francisco Franco’s death Spain remains deeply divided over the past.  For over twenty years British native and renowned history tour guide Nick Lloyd has made his living explaining the complexity of this past through his Spanish Civil War tours in Barcelona .  Author of Forgotten Place: Barcelona and the Spanish Civil War and most recently, Travels Through the Spanish Civil War ,...

Ninety years after the start of the Spanish Civil War the past is not past, it’s not even over.  Nick Lloyd, who moved from Britain to Barcelona over three decades ago, explains that the left and right in Spain remain profoundly divided over the memory of the Civil War and these divisions have only deepened in recent years.  Described by renowned television and travel personality Rick Steves as th...

In the age of climate change and global pandemics how do we remember the victims?  University of Madison, Wisconsin historian Richard C. Keller examines this question through his study of the 2003 heat wave in Paris.  This was the worst natural disaster in French history claiming some 15,000 lives.  In his book, Fatal Isolation: The Devastating Paris Heat Wave of 2003 , Keller explains the myriad...

In his study of the 2003 heat wave in Paris, historian Richard C. Keller reveals the myriad ways we forget the victims of natural disasters.  We relegate marginalized and vulnerable populations to the most precarious housing then blame them for the inevitable outcome of their own life choices.  We formulate categories of susceptible, at-risk populations whose subsequent deaths become unsurprising,...

How can we understand the extraordinary scope and magnitude of global fame and notoriety achieved by Anne Frank? The Anne Frank diary has been translated into over sixty languages and sold over twenty million copies.  It has inspired everything from graphic novels and Japanese anime to movies and off-Broadway musicals.  The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam has become a major tourist destination attra...

How did the diary of a thirteen year old girl transform Anne Frank into an international memory sensation?  Dutch historian David Barnouw, the world’s leading Anne Frank memory expert, has spent his career explaining the Anne Frank phenomenon.  Find out more on the December 2nd episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.  

From global warming to mass species extinction we are now living in what Alan Weisman describes as the make or break century. What decisions we make now will determine how we come out on the other side.  For the past quarter century Alan has traveled the globe reporting on the crises that imperil the planet.  In The World Without Us (2007), which became a New York Times bestseller, he chronicles w...

For the past quarter century journalist and non-fiction writer Alan Weisman has traveled the globe to write about the existential crises that now imperil the planet.  In The World Without Us (2007), which became a New York Times bestseller, he kills off humanity in the opening pages to help us imagine what would become of our environmental impact after we’re gone.  In Count Down: Our Last Best Hop...