historical memory essay

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Memory vs. History: On the Neverending Struggle to See Clearly Into the Past

Sarisha kurup tries to map the personal over the public.

In autumn of 1993, as River Phoenix convulsed on a Los Angeles sidewalk, his body riddled with cocaine and morphine, my father sat somewhere in San Francisco, only four years older than the child star who would forever be 23.

Bill Clinton had just become president and a van had exploded outside the World Trade Center, killing six and injuring over 1,000. Rodney King testified against the four LAPD officers that brutally beat him, sending two of them to prison. Rivers flooded the American Midwest all April; the IRS granted the Church of Scientology full tax exemption; and my father tucked himself away in the Silicon Valley, making computer chips for Cirrus Logic.

My mother tells me these details over a broken phone signal. She still lives in the Bay Area, where she moved in August of 1994, and met my father only a month later. Today I am in a hotel room in Amsterdam, and I can barely ask her any of my questions because we rarely talk about him directly. I find myself stuttering, the words dissolving on my tongue. The easiest way to ask these questions is in a steady, emotionless voice, like an automated message.

What he was doing that autumn, how he spent his free time, who he called on an empty evening, what time he fell asleep, if he slept much at all—it’s all a mystery. He never kept any journals. He rarely changed his wardrobe throughout his adult life, so I can imagine, at least, how he dressed. Light wash jeans, black or brown belt, the kind of polo shirts where the shoulders hang down to mid upper arm. The printed photos in our family albums are not dated, and there are few of my father before he met my mother. She was always the photographer.

Photos of River Phoenix in 1993 are plentiful and, now, strange. His hair is long, blonde—the kind of hair one looks at in hindsight and laughs—his smile is mischievous. He doesn’t look like he should be in the last year of life. And yet, the night before Halloween, outside a club in Los Angeles, his younger brother placed a shaky 911 call and by the time the paramedics had arrived, River Phoenix was in cardiac arrest.

When people die young, it is often said that they are frozen in time. That while all their peers age and turn soft and grey, they will forever exist in photos and our minds just as they did in their last days. But I think there are people like River Phoenix, people who are so famous whose names roll off everyone’s tongues, people who, when they die, freeze even the time around them. We don’t all understand time the way historians do, and even they cannot control all of what we remember. Memory is inexplicable and selective, and nostalgia is strong. As the past collapses and scatters into something messier, less linear, we collectively remember only the road markers, the people and the things that cut the deepest.

Nineteen ninety-three will always belong to River Phoenix: frozen the moment he lost consciousness on the filthy sidewalk of the Sunset Strip. My memories do not extend to 1993, and yet when I think of that year I think of Johnny Depp and his band singing inside The Viper Room as River Phoenix slips from life just steps away, without them knowing, out in the evening air.

They found JFK Jr.’s body 120 feet below the surface of the Atlantic in July of 1999, only a few months after I was born. My father lived with me and my mother in a rented house then. On the day that John Jr’s plane went down the house was crowded with relatives who stumbled over each other in the little space, cooing and clapping to get the attention of the new baby. My father had started his own company only two years earlier. I understood very little about technology growing up, and still can’t wrap my head around the way most machines work, so I could never explain much to people who asked what it was that my father did. But I could say he helmed a tech company that was called Vitalect. There are photos from this period in his life, and videos too. My mother was the videographer, and the moving images are shot from her perspective. When you watch them you can see the way she must have seen us—a thirty-three-year-old man and a six-month-old baby, both with the same dimple indented into our left cheeks.

When his plane hit the Atlantic, JFK Jr. died on impact. They didn’t find his body until three days later. At the site of the wreckage he was still buckled in, trapped in the pilot’s seat. His family scattered his ashes in the Atlantic. I always thought this was strange—giving him back to the very thing that took him.

We scattered my father’s ashes at the base of the orange tree in our backyard. He loved that tree. It was heavy with fruit each December without fail, and on early grey mornings you could find him there, reaching up among the branches.

I often think of 1999 as my year. The year I wrote down on every document and form. I asked my mother how my father had spent 1999, and she said—as if it were the most obvious thing in the world— Well, it was the year you were born!

But I am a historian now, and I know that 1999 was the year that Bill Clinton was acquitted; the year Bill Gates became the richest man in the world; the year of a total solar eclipse. And yet the last year of the century still belongs to JFK Jr., the boy who saluted his father’s casket on his third birthday. His father, the man who froze 1963.

Did the news of JFK Jr.’s death shake the foundations of the rented house on Teal Street? My mother can’t recall, but it had always been my father who was deeply political, and I can’t imagine it hadn’t crossed his mind once or twice. The Kennedy Curse! Was he being bred for office? Was there some sort of conspiracy? The whole world was asking questions, but my parents weren’t ones to read the tabloids. My mother’s journals don’t cover this; there are no answers to find.

In January of 2008, my mother was preparing to leave California to go overseas for a month to bury her father. My father was preparing for a month of lone-parenting, meanwhile in his apartment in SoHo, Heath Ledger was overdosing on prescription medication. His housekeeper and his masseuse found him unconscious in bed, and their first call was to Mary Kate Olsen (not the paramedics, not 911), who sent them the number of a private security guard. By the time medical professionals arrived on the scene, Heath Ledger was dead. An Associated Press poll reported that news of his death was voted the top entertainment story of 2008. Promotional material for The Dark Knight, which was to be released later that year, had to be scrapped and re-done. A career high suddenly turned into a career end.

My father, like any good Democrat, knew to list Brokeback Mountain as a favorite movie. I’m certain he must have considered Heath Ledger’s death. I was old enough by then to leave my mother’s side while she perused aisles in the grocery store and instead make my way to the shelf of magazines. That month, I’m sure, his face plastered every one. Retrospectives, investigations, timelines. I imagine it was as if everyone’s breath caught at once.

Two thousand and eight was a good year for our family. My father’s company was doing well, and so was my mother’s magazine. We went on our first and only family cruise that summer. This is the first family vacation I can actually remember. I can see my father in his orange swimming trunks, floating on his back in the chlorine-blue water. I imagine he must have been happy, though I can’t really say for sure.

I once asked my mother to tell me how they’d met, something beyond the bare-bones story of a college reunion picnic at a California park. Had he dated anyone else before her? You should have asked him, she said, refusing to budge. I don’t know why she locks away these stories.

In autumn of 2016, my father died halfway across the world while doing press for his new book. I hadn’t seen him in months. He’d been having heart problems and strokes for two years before he finally gave in, but my memory around his death is blurry, perhaps because I never knew the exact circumstances or because I don’t want to remember, some coping mechanism of my brain. I’m not sure, but it’s never felt fair to ask my mother to relive it. He was already sick, and I think he fell out of his bed, which shocked his heart or his brain or something. I was never much of a doctor.

There was nothing I could do as I watched my father slip away. He didn’t freeze 2016. Two thousand and sixteen kept going, and I was still in school, still writing papers, still applying to colleges: helplessly watching as he recessed into time. How beautiful and devastating, to let things become the past.

Eventually, some weeks after his death, I took my journal to a café and wrote down every memory I had of him, cataloguing and archiving all that I could. By the end of it, I finally cried for him, for the first time. It was then that the act of writing became so important that it was essential, the most concrete form of remembering, and even then, sometimes, it wasn’t enough. I can’t remember who I was before my father died, what I cared about, what I knew to be right and wrong. I can’t remember the specificities of our relationship; my own memory collapses into flashes of moments and images with no linear narrative. I write what I can, but memory is not as as simple as a story, or an essay, or the collection of home videos we have on VHS tapes.

Historian Timothy Snyder writes about the difference between memory and history. Finding them distinctly opposed, he writes that “memory exists in first person. If there isn’t a person, there isn’t a memory. Whereas history exists above all in second or third person.”

I can tell you so much about how River Phoenix died, about the investigations and lawsuits that ensued. I can tell you more about JFK Jr’s final morning than my father’s. I’ve read Heath Ledger’s autopsy report, but I don’t know if my father even had one. (Do they do that for people who can’t or don’t freeze time?) I can tell you what each one of these men was wearing when he died. I cannot say the same about my father. With men like River, John Jr, and Heath, history and memory converge. To be so famous and vivid is to be memory and fact at once. Indisputable. Immutable.

Two thousand and sixteen probably belongs to people like that, to David Bowie, or Prince, or someone whose face people will never forget and will never be allowed to forget. When my mother is gone, much of my father will go with her. She knew him for 21 years of his life—nearly half of it. I knew him for 17, but my memories are already faint and fallible, and I recall less of the years before he got sick with every passing day. My children will never know him.

Since he died it has been my mission to turn memory into history. I photograph, I paint, I journal, and most importantly, I write. Everything must be archived; I do it for some undetermined future reader, researcher, historian. I am equally enchanted and repelled by the passage of time. Nothing can render something beautiful like the past, and yet, I know intimately the pain that can come of the march forward. Not everyone can freeze time; some are simply swept away.

Perhaps all the writing, all the archiving, is only delaying the inevitable. Sometimes I have to remind myself that my father is not a historical figure; he is not a 90s heartthrob, or the son of a president, or an adored, tragic actor. No one is languishing over the fact that he never kept a journal, or that he didn’t take many photographs, or that I can no longer recall the exact contours of his face from memory. And yet I can’t stop writing his history.

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Sarisha Kurup

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Historical Memory Definition, Examples & Importance

Savannah has taught 9-12th grade history and social studies for 5 years. She has a B.S. in History and Social Studies for Secondary Education and a Masters in Curriculum from Appalachian State University. She is licensed to teach 9-12th grade social studies courses in NC and is a licensed K-12 Curriculum Specialist.

Artem has a doctor of veterinary medicine degree.

Why is memory important in history?

Memory is important in history because people can apply that knowledge to their current lives by learning history. For example, if a country learned in the past about the dangers of a particular event, it can use that knowledge to avoid a similar situation.

What is historical or collective memory?

Historical or collective memory is the fluid way people create specific narratives about historical periods or events. This means that this is how people tell the stories of the past but change them as they learn new information.

Table of Contents

What is historical memory, past vs. history vs memory bias, examples of historical memory, the importance of historical memory and collective memory, lesson summary.

History is the story of the past. The word has the word story inside of it. It is important to know that history is fluid, meaning that it can change over time. But if history is an account of all the events of the past, how does it change? One aspect is historical memory . Historical memory refers to the fluid way people or groups create specific accounts and stories of historical periods and events. As a result, historical memory is also known as social or collective memory . Historical memory can be based on various factors, including familial, religious, and national. The phrase "history is told from the victor's eyes" is an excellent example of this. Depending on the location, a historical event can be explained differently. For example, a United States history class taught the American Revolution as a brave stand against a tyrannical king. However, if the same course was being taught in Great Britain, students might learn about colonists committing treason against their mother country. This is just one example of how there are many factors that influence the narratives of historical events. Other national factors could be over-glorifying a nation. Familial memory refers to when a family member shares their stories from the past and passes them down through generations. Religious factors could include when significant events, items, or people are conveyed through stories, and those become the foundation of someone's beliefs. All of these factors contribute to the lens through which people view their history and ultimately can contribute to biases.

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• 0:04 Remembering Differently
• 0:30 History vs. The Past
• 1:27 Historical Memory
• 2:16 Example of Biases
• 3:50 Lesson Summary

History is based on the interpretation of the past, meaning the collection of everything that has ever happened before now. Memory is what is passed down through generations. It is the first-hand account of an event. History is an interpretation of that memory. For example, if someone were to look at a document from the past, their interpretation would be considered history. In a way, history is the reconstructed version of the past. That is what makes it "fluid" because as more evidence surfaces, the construction of it may be modified. Contrary to popular belief, historians do not all believe the same thing. They may argue over the causes of war or which country is the best. These discrepancies can be the result of bias. Bias refers to being in favor or against something and typically results in unfair actions or prejudice. Because of this, history and historical memory can both be influenced by bias. Because historical memory is the way that groups of people create specific narratives about events, the factors that influence those groups of people also influence history.

Almost any historical event or time period is an example of historical memory regarding the story that is told. Historical bias is what is discovered when those stories are analyzed. For example, at the end of World War Two, many countries belonged to the "winning side." What each country contributed to the war effort depends on which one is telling the story. One example of historical memory bias is the tendency to overclaim. If a nation belongs to the victors, they may overclaim the amount they contributed to the war effort. One image shows women working in Britain's World War One factory. They might tell the story differently than another group of women living in a different nation. As a result, all those who hear the story from that country or its citizens are subject to bias. Another form of historical bias could be towards different groups. For example, in the early 1900s, European immigrants were often discriminated against in the United States due to their different cultural practices. As a result, the storytellers of that generation may speak negatively about that group. When others hear that story or look at the pieces of history, like newspaper articles or other documents, they learn from a biased viewpoint. That is why it is essential that historians try to remain unbiased when evaluating and analyzing pieces of evidence.

Why study history? What is the purpose of spending so much time on the past? These common questions are answered when one understands the importance of historical and collective memory. Historical memory allows the opportunity for people to apply history practically to their lives and understand how the past is understood. Historical memory can provide the chance to understand history with all the information that is currently known but frame it to the past. By using different methods, one can understand why the narrative is told the way it is. If history is understood, that also provides the opportunity to learn from it more meaningfully. For example, if students learn about the conflicting paintings of the Boston Massacre, they can frame it as a time when television and radio were not available. This means it was the only way for citizens to receive information about the event. They then might understand that the media influenced how they learned about an event. That historical memory now supports the opportunity to take it a step further and learn about media influences today.

Historical memory is the way that people or groups create narratives about historical events from the past. The past is a collection of everything that has happened before, and history is the interpretation of that past. Historical memory is also known as social or collective memory due to the fact that groups of people are often the ones sharing the memory. These narratives can be influenced by religious, national, or familial values and memories. Historical memory is subject to bias, and as a result, that bias can alter the memory. It is important to understand historical memory and how to use it so that students can have the opportunity to learn about the history during its time and then apply it to their lives today. In order to make the best decisions possible, leaders, nations, and citizens must understand their history, and historical memory provides that opportunity.

Video Transcript

Remembering differently.

Is it possible for history to be recorded in more than one way even when looking at exactly the same event? The answer is a resounding yes. In fact, maybe you've had such an experience. Perhaps you recall that you beat your brother at a game of 21 when you were kids but he recalls that he actually beat you.

This is where the concept of historical memory and its associated potential biases come in. Let's go over these concepts in this lesson.

History vs. the Past

Before we jump into the topic of historical memory we need to be clear about the concepts of history and the past. The past is the entire collection of absolutely everything that has ever happened anywhere in the universe prior to this moment. This could be wars, supernova explosions, your cousin Tim getting married, Brazil wining the FIFA World Cup, and Julius Caesar thinking about what he should eat for breakfast the day he got killed. All that is the past.

History is often used synonymously with the past but it should actually be distinguished from it. History is the study, interpretation, and recording of past events and their recollections in a way that gives meaning to people. That game of 21 you played with your brother is in the past. It is part of the past. Your interpretation of who won is a part of history. Think of the part of the word ''story'' to help you remember that history is a story or perception of the past.

Historical Memory

Now that you can distinguish between the two, let's define the concept of historical memory. Historical memory refers to the way by which groups of people create and then identify with specific narratives about historical periods or events. Historical memory is sometimes called collective memory or social memory and is a dependent upon things like:

• Familial memory, which are memories that family's create and then pass down of their own experiences.
• Religious memory, when a religious entity is important when it comes to a group of people's storytelling, and thus, creation of memories.
• National memory, which is like the official memory recognized by a nation.

Historical memories help form the social and political identities of groups of people and they can be changed with respect to present moments.

Examples of Biases

This is where the whole notion of bias and historical memory comes in. Historical memory is fluid because history is not the same thing as the past. History is the interpretation of the past, and because it's an interpretation, the past can be skewed in a different light based on present moment and personal biases in time. These can later change and so history can be re-written and recalled differently once again.

For example, think of how differently Confederate statues are recalled by people in the U.S. For one group of people, those Confederate statues are tributes to fallen Southerners or an acknowledgment of the past, good or bad. For others, their historical memory is very different and those statues represent pro-slavery and racism.

Or what about the ways by which historical memories of the Korean War are depicted by North Korean museums, where the U.S. is shown as an aggressor vs. U.S. museums, where the opposite is true?

Changes in power can also bring about changes in historical memory. Some in the U.S. recall the days of George W. Bush far more fondly once President Trump came to power than they did in the days of George W. Bush himself.

Identity also plays a big part in historical memory and biases. For example, individuals who identify themselves very strongly with a group of people have been shown to recall negative acts associated with their group of people far less than those who do not associate themselves as strongly with the same group.

The past is the entire collection of everything that has ever happened prior to this moment. This is different from history , which is the study, interpretation, and recording of past events and their recollections in a way that gives meaning to people.

Note the interpretation part. This is the reason for why history is re-written and for why historical memories are so fluid. Historical memory , or collective memory, refers to the fluid way by which groups of people create and then identify with specific narratives about historical periods or events, sometimes based on present circumstances. Historical memory involves a collection of familial memory, religious memory, and national memory. Biases can change the presentation or recording of history depending on factors like nationality, changes in rule, or being a part of a group.

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Covering books and digital resources across all fields of history

ISSN 1749-8155

Memory and History: Understanding Memory as Source and Subject

Officially, the designated revolution that took place in historical theory since the Second World War is that of the so-called ‘linguistic turn’. But as the postmodernist era in historical theory begins to fade, one begins to wonder if the real revolution in post-war historical theory actually consisted of the rise of memory studies. As the editor of this collection points out in her introduction, ‘Memory is now as familiar a category for historians as politics, war or empire’ (p. 1). The rise of memory studies began at the turn of the 1970s, and the reasons for its rise are multifarious. The Holocaust and the idea of the ‘duty to remember’ undoubtedly played a part, as did some of the new social history of the 1960s; the decline of positivism’s standing in historical method and the ‘cultural turn’ must also be taken into account. One might say that, ‘taking all of the aforementioned factors together, that the ‘memory boom’ of recent years has been over-determined’ (p. 5). Nonetheless, regardless from whence it sprung, the point is that memory is now an inescapable feature of the historiographical landscape.

The collection under review is published as part of The Routledge Guides to Using Historical Sources series; and unsurprisingly, the introduction argues that what distinguishes the volume from other introductions to history and memory is its focus on sources. The volume is divided into three sections, with the first looking at working with oral testimonies; the second deals with memorialisation and commemoration; while the third examines the intersections between individual and collective memory. A select bibliography is provided for all three areas at the end of the book.

One of the key critical issues in the area of memory studies is the reception of memory, with more than one commentator arguing that not enough has been done to address the issue. Most historical studies of memory ‘favour analysis of the textual, visual or oral representations of the past over the pursuit of evidence for responses to those cultural artifacts’ (p. 8). The issue of reception is touched upon in several of the essays in Memory and History . Polly Low looks at the use of inscribed monuments in Ancient Athens to examine not only what the Athenians were attempting to communicate with these monuments; but also whether their attempts were successful. However, the evidence for whether the attempts were successful is slim, and the answer to the question is left somewhat opaque; commemorative monuments ‘may well have been set up with specific intentions, but it does not follow that they were always or only used for those purposes’ (p. 81). In her essay on the role that photography plays in museums, Susan A. Crane asks ‘how did the inclusion of photographs in museums shape the way that diverse audiences, from curators to scholars to the visiting public, interacted with the visual presence of the past?’ (p. 123). But as with Low’s chapter on Athenian monuments, the essay by and large focuses on what those who exhibited the photographs intended them to portray, as opposed to how said photographs were received by their audience. Audience reception is only really addressed in the last two pages of the chapter. Finally, Jason Crouthamel admits on the second page of his chapter on the characterisation of ‘shellshock’ in the Weimar Republic that ‘individual memory proves to be more difficult to locate and analyze’ – although to be fair it should be noted that Crouthamel is more successful in trying to present the reception of memory than either Crane or Low (p. 144). Nonetheless, the impression one gets from Memory and History is that the gauging the reception of memory is a highly problematic affair which even the doyens of the field have struggled to get to grips with. In her introduction Tumblety states that the aim of the volume is to ‘animate and interrogate’ rather than resolve outstanding problems – but with regards to the reception of memory, animation seems thin on the ground.

A theme that runs throughout the entire collection – or ‘haunts’ the volume as Tumblety puts it (like a spectre perhaps?) – is the problematic notion of collective memory. In Lindsey Dodd’s chapter on French oral history during the Second World War (by far the best essay in the book), the author emphasises the importance of ‘cultural scripts’. If there is a gap between individual memories and ‘public’ forms of remembering, then the individual may be left feeling alienated as a result (p. 37). The Allied bombing of France during the Second World War has been described a ‘black hole’ with regard to French collective memory of the war: Dodd’s doctoral research found that it was fairly well remembered at a local/individual level, but a silence prevails at a public and institutional level (p. 37). On Dodd’s reading, public memory acts as a kind of ‘jelly mould’ that shapes personal memories; with no such mould to hand, the individuals memories will be shapeless, and in the case of Dodd’s interviewee, coalesce around other psychological landmarks.

Continuing the theme, Rosanne Kennedy’s essay ‘Memory, history and the law’ examines the role of the law in shaping collective memory. The Nuremberg trials chose documentation over testimony with regard to the evidence, and therefore did not significantly contribute to the collective memory of the Holocaust. By contrast, the trial of Albert Eichmann in 1961 was designed almost as more of an exercise in collective memory than as a trial (1) ; lead prosecutor Gideon Hauser allowed witnesses to present narratives – opposed to the usual courtroom fare of question and answer – and the trial was significant in ‘bringing Holocaust survivors, who had been marginalised in Israeli society, into the forefront of national consciousness, and making the Holocaust central to national identity and remembrance in Israel’ (p. 55). As Peter Novick has noted, ‘collective memory works selectively; it is a form of myth-making that is shaped by the needs of groups, and the formation of group identity, in the present’ (p. 57). A historical approach to the past recognises the complexity of events, whereas memory tends to simplify – shaping the past to fit within the jelly mould of a cultural script. I will return to the tension between ‘history’ and ‘memory’ shortly.

Another theme raised in this collection is the idea of visual memory. Franziska Seraphim makes the obvious, but nonetheless important point that images function differently from texts; ‘we see with memory … Images tend to tap into the habits of mind (as distinct from critical thinking) … to make sense’ (p. 98). Similarly, Joan Tumblety documents how the image of resistance fighters in post-war France was cultivated through films which were ‘often publically funded and controlled’ (p. 109). Such films functioned as historical sources ‘in the absence of much written material about that had been of necessity secret’ (p. 109). Tumblety also examines the written form of memory in her essay, through an examination of the challenge to official memory via the written memoirs of those ‘with an axe to grind about the present regime and its alleged manipulation of the past’ (p. 115).

The final essay deals with the idea of memory and materiality. (2) Susan M. Stabile puts it that a palimpsest is not only a material object, but also a metaphor for memory. (3) The original ‘inscription’ – the act itself – is erased and forgotten, and thus lived experience is deposited in memory, and reposited in narrative (p. 194). But memory changes with each iteration, ‘shaped by the moment in which it is recalled. That recollection will be overwritten at a future moment, shadowed by a new memory’ (p. 194). The past therefore, only exists as a fragment or ruin – or if you’re a fan of Hayden White, as synecdoche. But traces of the past survive in what has come to be known as a ‘cumulative palimpsest’. In the words of Geoff Bailey, ‘successive episodes of deposition … remain superimposed one upon the other without loss of evidence, but are so re-worked and mixed together that it is difficult or impossible to separate them out into their original constituents’ (p. 195). Stabile’s essay examines 19th-century antiquarian John Watson, and in particular his perpetuation of colonial ruins through a relic box. Material culture is a palimpsest – ‘the literal things that people leave behind…material culture embodies and evokes memory’ (p. 197).

I spoke above of the tension between history – as in academic history – and memory. The historian has often been sceptical of oral testimony; Anna Wieviorka makes the case that the Eichmann trial was crucial in legitimising testimony as an epistemically acceptable form of truth telling about the past – and that this had a negative impact on historical writing. The Holocaust thus came ‘to be defined as a succession of individual experiences with which the public was supposed to identify’ (p. 56). The problem is that this is not a particularly good foundation for writing history; D. J. Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners is probably the most high profile example of this. One can learn a lot from listening to personal testimonies – ‘but does one learn history?’ (p. 57). At the other end of the pendulum, Pierre Nora felt that history had been a bad thing for memory; ‘true’ memory has been obliterated by ‘modern’ memory – the latter consisting of ‘the practise of oral history, heritage, commemoration, archives and genealogy’ (p. 160). There are some commentators however, who occupy a position somewhere between these two poles, James Young feels that the distinction between history and memory – ‘history as that which happened, memory as that which is remembered of what happened’ – is somewhat forced (p. 58). Similarly, Hannah Ewence contends at the start of her essay that ‘Nora establishes between history and memory appear fabricated and unnecessarily provocative, overlooking the ways in which history and memory can, and do, successfully overlap and crossfertilize’ (p. 160). Even ‘atomized memory’ uses the materials and milestones of ‘official’ memory to construct and reconstruct the past (p. 161).

It is the tension between ‘history’ and ‘memory’ that provides the jumping off point for Ewence’s essay ‘Memories of suburbia: autobiographical fiction and minority narratives’. Ewence studies three autobiographical novels to not only make the point that history, memory and fiction share points of similarity; but also as a means of introducing the idea of the ‘spatial turn’ – ‘ideas about space and place are encoded with individual and collective identity(ies), memories and histories’ (p. 162). All three novels contain autobiographical elements, but their respective authors have resisted attempts to draw explicit parallels with their own lives – and the fact that they are not straightforward autobiographies is one of their strengths, as ‘Fiction alone has the capacity, perhaps the audacity, to challenge history … whilst autobiography typically prefers to “save face”’ (p. 169). In all three novels, a clear sense of space is ‘fundamental within their writing as a site for exploring history, memory and identity’ (p. 172). Fiction allows authors to explore and deposit memory, and readers can draw upon their own memories to evoke their own past experiences; and to an extent it allows the negation of power structures that determine what history can be told by whom in a way that sometimes oral history cannot.

One of the interesting things about this collection is the lack of reference made to those we might call some of the doyens of postmodernism. I recently had a rather spirited exchange with Alun Munslow in these pages over whether postmodernism was on the wane or not. (4) It could be argued that the absence of the likes of Derrida and Barthes from these pages might be taken as an indicator that the postmodernist turn in historical theory is on the decline. In a review of a similar work on memory a few years ago, Patrick Hutton noted that the ‘diminishing enthusiasm among historians for postmodernist theory’ might prompt a ‘return to the old and very practical historiographical problems of testimony, evidence, and interpretation’. (5) The approach and contents of Memory and History would suggest that this has indeed taken place.

Memory and History provides an interesting cross-section of essays from the front-line of memory studies; but its broadly based empiricist tone is both the book’s main strength and weakness, depending on your predilections in these matters. If you tend towards the view that historical theory should be aligned more closely with historical practice, then this collection of essays will be seen as a step in the right direction. If on the other hand, one inclines towards what we might call the Wulf Kansteiner/ Jörn Rüsen end of the spectrum, then there will be a woeful lack of theory in this one for your tastes, and a quick retreat to the pages of History and Memory journal may be necessary.

• I am aware of the anachronism of using the term ‘collective memory’ here. Back to (1)
• Although this is addressed tangentially in chapters one and four as well. Back to (2)
• For the uninitiated, a palimpsest is ‘Paper, parchment, or other writing material designed to be reusable after any writing on it has been erased’. Definition taken from the Oxford English Dictionary . Back to (3)
• See < http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1356 > [accessed 3 June 2013]. Back to (4)
• Patrick H. Hutton, ‘Memories of trauma: problems of interpretation’, History and Theory , 43 (2004), 258. Back to (5)

Author's Response

I would like to thank the reviewer for his close reading of the volume. It is not my intention in this response to take issue with any element of the review; rather to reflect on a few of the general comments made in it about the apparent wane of (postmodernist) theorising in the discipline of history. I agree with the reviewer that the edited volume is broadly empiricist in tone, as well as in method. And I think he is right to suggest that it will more readily satisfy those who like to see their theory closely aligned with historical practice. This is indeed deliberate, not least because Memory and History sits within the Routledge Using Historical Sources series, whose remit is not to exclude – if neither solely to address – an audience of undergraduate and post-graduate students, as well as non-specialist scholars working in the Anglophone university sphere, who may well turn to the book for pointers about how to approach the study of memory through extant primary material rather than for a theoretical Weltanschauung .  That is why the chapters consider distinct genres of source – letters, photography, fiction, trial testimony, etc. – as well as disparate periods and places.

Yet, as the reviewer suggests, the request for some kind of systematic theorization within memory studies has been a common refrain in the scholarly literature. This is not necessarily a demand for theorising memory itself (although that has been common enough, especially where collective memory is concerned); rather, it is a conviction that getting a handle on the multiple, and perhaps interpenetrating analytical frameworks within which ‘memory’ of one kind or another has been, or can be, understood across a range of disciplines, enables a more rigorous and dialogic engagement among scholars.(1) And it has also been a plea for a historicisation of the notion of memory itself, as the introduction to the volume explores.

What strikes me about the most serious, systematic and – above all – influential attempts in English to theorize memory in this way, however, is that they have emanated from sociologists, or sociologically inclined historians – such as Jeffrey Olick and Wulf Kansteiner – who generally bypass the long-lived engagement within literary criticism and some kinds of intellectual history with (largely French) structuralist or post-structuralist theories of language. Thus while a few foundational works in the field draw in some measure on the work of Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida (and these theorists find some echo in current scholarship), I would say that the loudest scholarly conversations in memory studies over the last two decades or so – precisely the period of the cross-disciplinary fight over the value of postmodernist approaches – barely mention them. (2) Instead, it is the significance for the field of the writings of early sociologists such as Maurice Halbwachs and Emile Durkheim that is stressed in the great volume of scholarly writing on memory. And although Marek Tamm has recently championed the semiotically inclined works of continental European writers on memory such as Astrid Erll, the central plank of his argument – that historians would do well to deploy a notion of ‘mnemohistory’ in their work; in other words to become attuned to ‘the two levels he [the historian] is simultaneously working on: the historicisation of the phenomenon of the past and the historicisation of his own work’ – does not depend overtly on post-structuralist insights.(3)

Clearly, one does not need postmodernism (or its component part, post-structuralism) in order to theorise memory. And neither does one need postmodernism, I would argue, in order to identify and to explain the impact of the so-called linguistic turn on the development of memory studies and on the historical discipline as a whole, however much scholars continue to conflate the ‘linguistic turn’ with ‘[t]he deconstructionist impulse of postmodernism’.(4) The epistemologically radical refusal of objective truth, so associated with post-structuralist approaches to language, is worlds away from the kind of linguistic turn made famous after the late 1960s by the outstanding historian of early modern political thought, Quentin Skinner, whose methodology drew instead on the ‘speech act’ theories of British analytical philosopher John Austin.(5) In any case, the generalisation within the discipline of the insight that our evidence is almost always in some sense rhetorically constructed – an appreciation that has undoubtedly nourished the scholarly memory boom – is as characteristic of what some postmodernist historians call ‘constructivist’ history writing as of ‘deconstructionist’ varieties.(6) It is not so much that postmodernism is on the wane in studies of memory, as that it never secured a foothold there in the first place.

Ultimately, I am in two minds about the value of systematic theorising. While rigour in the thinking and writing about memory – or any subject – should prevent the facile replication of buzz words wrenched free from any meaningful intellectual or other context, I sometimes wonder whether the drive towards systematisation that characterises some sociological investigation on the subject might not lead to a new positivism for the 21st century, something that in fact runs counter to the very scholarly trends that enabled the rise of ‘memory studies’ in the first place, at least among mainstream historians. Like the temptation to draw on recent discoveries in neuroscience as a potential arbiter of ‘what memory really means’, there is a danger that we permit a new essentialism to take hold.(7) Better, I would think, for historians to work towards a more conceptually reflective and robust kind of empiricism. This is what is offered by Neil Gregor in his recent social history of memory in post-war Nuremberg, an ‘empirically saturated study’ of grassroots memorial cultures whose immersion in source material that speaks to the words and deeds of those enmeshed in local networks, manages practically to collapse – and thus to resolve – one entrenched methodological divide in the field of memory, that between the representational and the experiential. (8)

(1) See The Collective Memory Reader , ed. Jeffrey K. Olick, Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi, and Daniel Levy (Oxford and New York, NY, 2011), and especially the lengthy attempt to systematise what – and how – we know about memory in its introduction, pp. 3–62.

(2) Aleida Assmann, Cultural Memory and Western Civilization: Functions, Media, Archives (Cambridge, 2011 [orig. German edition 1999]) draws on Roland Barthes’ theories of the image and Jacques Derrida’s approach to the ‘archive’. In Caroline Wake, ‘Regarding the recording: the viewer of video testimony, the complexity of coprescence and the possibility of tertiary witnessing’, History and Memory, 25, 1 (2013), 111–44, the ideas of both Barthes and Derrida, despite being cited, take a back seat to the author’s engagement with the works of intellectual historian Dominick LaCapra and sociologist Shanyang Zhao.

(3) Marek Tamm, ‘Beyond history and memory: new perspectives in memory studies’, History Compass, 11, 6 (2013), 458–73; here 464. Tamm is consciously building on the approach of Jan Assmann, which in turn is in part derived from the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer.

(4) Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, ‘A Looming crash or a soft landing? Forecasting the future of the memory “industry”’, The Journal of Modern History, 81, 1 (2009), 134. See also Richard J. Evans, In Defence of History (London, 1997), who seems to conflate postmodernism with what is often called the ‘new cultural history’, pp. 243–9, in his discussion of the work of Natalie Zemon Davis and Robert Darnton.

(5) Quentin Skinner, ‘Meaning and understanding in the History of Ideas’, History and Theory , 8, 1 (1969), 3–53.

(6) These are two of the main categories used to describe tendencies within historical scholarship in The Nature of History Reader, ed. Keith Jenkins and Alun Munslow (London, 2004).

(7) For engagement with neuroscience, see several contributions to Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates , ed. Susannah Radstone and Bill Schwarz (New York, NY, 2010).

(8) Neil Gregor, Haunted City: Nuremberg and the Nazi Past, (New Haven, CT and London, 2008), p. 20.

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Legacy and Memory

Published: August 2, 2016

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At a Glance

• The Holocaust

About this Chapter

The Holocaust and World War II left profound legacies—in the shape of the immediate aftermath of the war and the decades that followed, in the lives of individuals and the course of nations, and in the new ideas, laws, policies, and institutions that were developed in response to the death and destruction. This chapter explores some of those legacies, and it also considers what it means not just to learn about this history but also to remember it and acknowledge how it influences our lives today.

Essential Questions

• What can individuals or nations do to repair, rebuild, and restore their societies after war, genocide, and mass violence?
• How should we remember the Holocaust? 
• How does the past influence us as individuals and as members of society? Does the past influence us differently depending on our individual identities? 
• Why is it important to remember the past? What are the consequences of not remembering? 

What's Included

This chapter is from the  Legacy and Memory  section of  Holocaust and Human Behavior  and includes:

• 17 readings 
• 1 visual essay
• Connection Questions

Additional Context & Background

Soon after Germany’s surrender in May 1945, which ended World War II in Europe, the Allies began efforts to seek justice, to hold the guilty accountable, and to establish an international rule of law, a process that was explored in Chapter 10. The trials at Nuremberg were just the first attempt to respond meaningfully to the war and the systematic murders that we now call the Holocaust. This process of reckoning, or coming to terms, with the history of the Holocaust is one that continues today among historians, survivors and their descendants, politicians, citizens, and students. As American author James Baldwin has said, in writing about America’s history of slavery:

History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally  present  in all that we do. 1

Baldwin suggests that we won’t really understand history or ourselves unless we consider how the past is “present” in our world. And the Holocaust—which historians describe as not merely a significant moment in history but a “collapse in human civilization” 2 and a “symbol of evil” 3 —exerts an especially powerful force. Author Eva Hoffman, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, has observed, “Sixty years after the Holocaust took place, our reckoning with this defining event is far from over. Indeed, as this immense catastrophe recedes from us in time, our preoccupation with it seems only to increase.” 4

   In addition to the Nuremberg trials, new institutions, laws, policies, and ideas were developed in response to the death and destruction of World War II and the Holocaust. Among these were the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Criminal Court, and the concept of  genocide —a new term to describe a crime that before was nameless. But the legacy of the Holocaust consists of more than institutions, laws, and ideas; what happened then has continued to have a profound influence on the lives of individuals to this day. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has written, there is a difference between history and memory: “History is information. Memory, by contrast, is part of identity. . . . Memory is the past as present, as it lives on in me.” 5 Survivors, witnesses, the descendants of those who lived this history, and all those who learn about it today face the question of how to remember the past and how that memory might shape our understanding of ourselves and our present world.

The readings in this chapter span the period from 1945 to the twenty-first century, reflecting ways that legacy and memory are made evident in the lives of individuals, in institutions, in memorials, and on city streets. Teachers should select readings that best match their aims and objectives as well as the questions and interests of their students. 

• 1 James Baldwin, “The White Man’s Guilt,” Ebony, August 1965, 47.
• 2 “The President's Commission on the Holocaust: Guiding Principles,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed June 1, 2016.
• 3 Yehuda Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), x.
• 4 Eva Hoffman, After Such Knowledge: Memory, History, and the Legacy of the Holocaust (New York: Public Affairs, 2011), ix.
• 5 Jonathan Sacks, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks's Haggadah: Hebrew and English Text with New Essays and Commentary (New York: Continuum, 2006), 29.

Save this resource for easy access later.

Inside this chapter, explore the readings, the end and the beginning, post-war: chaos and challenges, the persistence of antisemitism, the united nations, the universal declaration of human rights, does the universal declaration of human rights matter, raphael lemkin and the genocide convention, the international criminal court, christian churches and antisemitism: new teachings, survivors and memory, transitional justice in germany, transitional justice in south africa, facing the past in poland, genocide denied, visual essay: holocaust memorials and monuments, remembering the names, memory and decision making in europe today, the holocaust as a call to conscience.

Analysis & Reflection

Enhance your students’ understanding of our readings on the legacies of the Holocaust with these follow-up questions and prompts.

• In what ways did the events of World War II and the Holocaust shape institutions, laws, and attitudes in the years that followed? What has been accomplished? How have these institutions, laws, and attitudes failed? What challenges remain?

Are there “lessons” that we can learn from the history of the Holocaust? What do the readings in this chapter suggest? What do you think? 

Elie Wiesel has said, “[I]f anything can, it is memory that will save humanity. For me, hope without memory is like memory without hope.” 1 Why does he say that memory will save humanity? What might happen if we don’t remember and confront a violent past? Why is it important to have both memory and hope as we try to solve the problems in our world?

Ha Jin, a Chinese American poet, wrote this poem, titled “The Past.”

I have supposed my past is part of myself. As my shadow appears whenever I’m in the sun the past cannot be thrown off and its weight must be borne, or I will become another man. But I saw someone wall his past into a garden whose produce is always in fashion. If you enter his property without permission he will welcome you with a watchdog or a gun. I saw someone set up his past as a harbor. Wherever it sails, his boat is safe— If a storm comes, he can always head for home. His voyage is the adventure of a kite. I saw someone drop his past like trash. He buried it and shed it altogether. He has shown me that without the past one can also move ahead and get somewhere. Like a shroud my past surrounds me but I will cut it and stitch it, to make good shoes with it, shoes that fit my feet. 2

What lines and phrases from the poem echo ideas and events in this chapter?

What does the poem suggest about the connection between history and identity? What do the readings in this chapter suggest about the connection between history and identity?

What does the last stanza suggest about how Ha Jin sees the relationship between the past and the future?

• 1 Elie Wiesel, “Nobel Lecture: 'Hope, Despair and Memory,'” Nobelprize.org, accessed June 3, 2016.
• 2 Ha Jin, Facing Shadows (Brooklyn, NY: Hanging Loose Press, 1996), 63. Reproduced by permission of Hanging Loose Press.

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History, Memory, and Monuments:   An Overview of the Scholarly Literature on Commemoration

Kirk Savage, University of Pittsburgh

            “Monuments are good for nothing,” a North Carolina Congressman declared in 1800.    In the founding years of the United States, many argued that democracy and the spread of literacy had made commemorative rituals and monuments obsolete, a leftover from the days of monarchy and superstition.   Reflecting on Congress’s reluctance to fund a monument to George Washington, John Quincy Adams famously observed   that “democracy has no monuments.”    “True memory,” many Americans liked to claim, lay not in a pile of dead stones but in the living hearts of the people.

            Since those early days of the Republic, democracy has changed its tune.   Commemoration has become utterly commonplace, deeply rooted in the cultural practices of the nation.   Not only did Americans come to embrace traditional forms of commemoration, but they pioneered new practices, particularly in the remembrance of war dead.   Today American commemorative practices have multiplied and spread in ways no one could have imagined, extending now even into the solar system (with a monument to the fallen Columbia crew on Mars).

            While commemorative practices have been expanding for nearly two centuries, the academic literature on commemoration has mushroomed in the past twenty years.   So many scholars from such a variety of disciplines have joined the “memory boom” that mapping the field has become effectively impossible.   Moreover, scholars often talk at cross purposes with one another or simply in ignorance of each other’s work.   This essay, while by necessity impressionistic, will try to pinpoint key questions, debates, findings, and trends.

            The first key question might be, what is commemoration?   Dictionary definitions tell us that to commemorate is to “call to remembrance,” to mark an event or a person or a group by a ceremony or an observance or a monument of some kind.   Commemorations might be ephemeral or permanent ;   the key point is that they prod collective memory in some conspicuous way.

            French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs ushered in the modern academic study of collective memory with his book The Social Frameworks of Memory (1925) in which he argued that all memory – even personal memory – is a social process, shaped by the various groups (family, religious, geographical, etc.)   to which individuals belong.   In an even more influential posthumous essay, “Historical Memory and Collective Memory” (1950), published after his death in a Nazi concentration camp, Halbwachs insisted on a distinction between history and collective memory: history aims for a universal, objective truth severed from the psychology of social groups while “every collective memory requires the support of a group delimited in space and time.”   Thus our view of the past does not come primarily from professional historical scholarship but from a much more complicated and interwoven set of relationships to mass media, tourist sites, family tradition, and the spaces of our upbringing with all their regional, ethnic, and class diversity – to name just a few factors.   Just as personal memory is now understood to be a highly selective, adaptive process of reconstructing the past, shaped by present needs and contexts, so collective memory is a product of social groups and their ever evolving character and interests.   Hence the now commonplace notion that collective memory is “constructed,” amidst a perpetual political battleground.   Almost everyone now agrees with American historian Michael Kammen’s assertion, made in his magisterial volume Mystic Chords of Memory (1991) that “societies in fact reconstruct their pasts rather than faithfully record them, and that they do so with the needs of contemporary culture clearly in mind – manipulating the past in order to mold the present.”

            Yet even when collective memory is qualified in this way, many scholars remain skeptical of the notion.   In a 2001 essay on “ The Memory Boom in Contemporary Historical Studies” social historian Jay Winter asserted that we need “a more rigorous and tightly argued set of propositions about what exactly memory is, and what it has been in the past.”   Some scholars even question the existence of collective memory.   The very idea of collective memory seems to assume a unity of purpose – as if many different people somehow share a common mind – that belies the reality of even the smallest family group, let alone a diverse nation like the U.S.   James Wertsch has argued in Voices of Collective Remembering (2002) that collective memory is not a thing in itself but many different acts of remembering, shaped by overarching social forces and cognitive frameworks such as narrative. Susan Sontag in her final book Regarding the Pain of Others (2002) went even further and argued that there isn’t a collective memory at all but there is “collective instruction,” a complex process – left mostly unexplained in her book – by which certain ideas and images become more important than others.

            “We speak so much of memory because there is so little of it left,” French scholar Pierre Nora has famously argued ( Realms of Memory , orig. 1984).   Nora claimed that modern societies invest so heavily in “lieux de memoire” [memory sites, such as monuments, museums, archives, and historic places] because these have replaced “real environments of memory,” the living memory that was once nourished spontaneously in premodern societies.   Nora’s claim echoes the anti-monument rhetoric of early American republicans.   Like the republicans before him, Nora suspected that modern commemorations were invented to make up for a lack of organic unity within modern nations and societies.   David Lowenthal’s book The Past Is a Foreign Country (1985) made a similar point, arguing that modern societies try desperately to resurrect the past because it has already disappeared from living culture.   While this core insight has been productive – modernity does indeed disrupt old patterns of collective memory – it is also reductive, failing to take into account not only the importance of commemoration in premodern societies but also the persistence of the past and “spontaneous” practices of memory in modern societies such as the U.S.  

            Nora’s attention to sites of memory and the politics surrounding them has had a profound influence on American scholarship, but many scholars who cite him simply ignore or overlook the assumptions that underpin his work.   Whatever their theoretical allegiances, scholars keep circling around the same basic questions.   Who guides the process of remembering and towards what ends?   Why do specific commemorative projects take particular forms?   How do commemorative practices actually shape social relations and cultural beliefs (rather than simply reflecting them)?   Inevitably this last question raises the key issue of how conspicuous acts of commemoration like public ceremonies and monument building relate to the more everyday practices of schooling, reminiscing, and unconscious habit that carry knowledge and tradition from one generation to another.   This question is the least directly addressed issue, probably because it is the hardest to research, though it haunts much of the scholarship on memory.

            In the U.S. the “memory boom” seems to have been inspired largely by two phenomena: the coming to grips with the Holocaust, which began in earnest in the 1970s, and the unexpected success of Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial, dedicated in 1982.   While the literature on Holocaust memory is now vast and intricate, James E. Young’s book The Texture of Memory (1993) has become indispensable.   Focusing on the unique problems posed by the trauma of the Holocaust, Young surveyed a range of memorial solutions in Europe and the U.S. from traditional heroic figurative monuments to avant-garde installations that deliberately undermined the very premise that monuments are permanent.   Throughout the book Young argued that monument building is a living process, in some sense always unfinished; no matter how much a monument may pretend to be eternal and unchanging, its meaning always evolves as its viewers bring new concerns and understandings to it.    Since the Holocaust was so clearly an event to be pondered rather than celebrated, monuments could never hope to fix its meaning for all time.

            The phenomenal power and popularity of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial almost immediately revived scholarly interest in the subject of public monuments.   Traditionally, public monuments had been the most prestigious forms of commemoration because they were designed as permanent showcases of public memory, to last for the ages.   But in the twentieth century, scholars came to consider the public monument a dead form.   Lewis Mumford wrote in The Culture of Cities (1938) that “the notion of a modern monument is a veritable contradiction in terms.”   While public monuments did continue to be erected in the mid-20 th century, scholars paid little attention until Maya Lin’s design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial offered a new, distinctly contemporary memorial format, an open solution – to follow James Young’s suggestion – that deliberately encouraged multiple meanings and uses. This spawned an immense literature on the monument itself and a renewed interest in how monuments and other public practices of commemoration work in modern society.

            Fittingly, one of the most frequently cited books on American public memory, John Bodnar’s Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (1992), began with a discussion of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.   Bodnar, an eminent social historian of ethnic and immigrant communities, was dissatisfied with the all too frequent assumption that commemorations were top-down affairs imposed by ruling elites on a passive populace.   The success of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial demonstrated to him that commemoration interwove what he called “official” and “vernacular” memory, official memory driven by the need of the state to mythologize itself and maintain the loyalty of its citizens and vernacular memory driven by the need of ordinary people to pursue their social and political concerns in their local communities.   Surveying a broad range of local commemorations including monuments and anniversaries, Bodnar argued that national patriotism worked to “mediate” or reconcile the competing interests of official and vernacular memories.   While Bodnar’s distinction between official and vernacular can break down in practice, his book has helped establish that commemoration “involves a struggle for supremacy between advocates of various political ideas and sentiments.”

            An interesting example that complicates Bodnar’s framework is Melissa Dabakis’s book, Monuments Of Manliness : Visualizing Labor In American Sculpture, 1880-1935 (1998), which studied various intersections of class, gender, and politics in the generally elite form of monumental sculpture.   Her investigation of the competing monuments to the Haymarket protest in Chicago in 1886 – one to the police, one to the anarchists – demonstrated that the “struggle for supremacy” was not only a conflict over which version of events would become officially enshrined in public space but also a shifting political conflict between left-wing and right-wing groups.   Ironically the official police monument had a more “realistic” vernacular form and definite vernacular appeal, at least among police recruits, while the anarchist monument had a more elite form laden with art-historical associations.

            Art historians like Dabakis, trained to study both the patronage and the reception of works of art, have realized for decades that monumental works become especially contested arenas, precisely because the work has a high public profile.   One of the earliest and best studies of U.S. monuments was Michele Bogart’s Public Sculpture and the Civic Ideal in New York City, 1890-1930 (1989).   Bogart’s book centered on the golden age of the public monument, a time when sculptural monuments proliferated not only in New York but throughout cities across the continent.    Her book traced the rise of an unabashedly elite genre of edifying commemoration at the end of the nineteenth century, supplied by well-known artists and their powerful political patrons.   But the story concluded with a fascinating account of how this elite consensus unraveled in the early twentieth century, as various groups – such as newly enfranchised women – began to acquire a voice in the process and to challenge the dominant sculptural language.   Since then that story has been extended by scholars such as Andrew Shanken, whose 2002 essay in Art Bulletin focused on the mid-twentieth century movement to replace sculptural monuments with “living memorials” (utilitarian memorials such as highways, parks, and concert halls).    Throughout the twentieth century memorials increasingly transformed from mere sculptural objects into more complex spaces, often with museum or archival functions.   Benjamin Hufbauer’s book Presidential Temples: How Memorials and Libraries Shape Public Memory (2005) has shown how gargantuan Presidential libraries have become a dominant type, overshadowing or even supplanting the older hero-on-a-pedestal that had once been the preferred type of monument to a great leader.

              As noted above, however, traditional public monuments never disappeared, and they continued to be a powerful form of commemoration even as they lost their appeal to cultural elites.   Karal Ann Marling and John Wetenhall’s Iwo Jima: Monuments, Memories, and the American Hero (1991) is a study of one such monument, the Marine Corps War Memorial erected in Arlington, Virginia in 1954.   Their book embedded the monument within popular culture, where the iconic image originally came from (a wartime newspaper photo) and where it continues to live and thrive.   The phenomenon in which particular monuments have become icons of the nation has been studied in books such as Marvin Trachtenberg’s Statue of Liberty (1976), Rex Alan Smith’s Carving of Mount Rushmore (1985), Christopher A. Thomas’s The Lincoln Memorial and American Life (2002), and most recently Nicolaus Mills’s Their Last Battle: The Fight for the National World War II Memorial (2004).   Albert Boime in The Unveiling of the National Icons: A Plea for Patriotic Iconoclasm in a Nationalist Era (1998) demonstrated the authoritarian and exclusionary character of many of these icons, although he did not fully take into account what Bodnar might call the vernacular attachment to iconic forms of commemorative art.

            Washington, D.C. has received a great deal of attention because it is the commemorative heart of the nation.   The role of the Capitol building in commemorating the western expansion of the nation, and the defeat of Indians who stood in the way, has been examined in Vivien Fryd, Art And Empire : The Politics of Ethnicity in the United States Capitol, 1815-1860 (1992).   Other aspects of the Capitol’s commemorative program have been explored in American Pantheon : Sculptural and Artistic Decoration of the United States Capitol , a collection of essays edited By Donald R. Kennon and Thomas P. Somma (2004).   The development of the “monumental core” of the capital city has been much studied, but the single best volume on the national Mall as a commemorative landscape remains The Mall in Washington, 1791-1991 , edited by Richard Longstreth (1991).    Countless specialized studies on commemorative practices in the capital have been produced – on parades, ceremonies, cemeteries, city plans, outdoor sculpture – but surprisingly few serious synthetic studies of how the city has worked as a commemorative landscape.  

            More scholarly work in this direction is likely as the collective memory field continues to expand beyond its traditional base in sociology, history, and art history and embraces the work of geographers, landscape historians, ethnographers, archaeologists, and other academic practitioners. Richard Handler and Eric Gable’s enthnographic study of America’s most famous living museum, The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg (1997), is an excellent example, investigating how the historical lessons of this site are continuously reshaped or even ignored as they are put into practice by reenactors and consumed by tourists.    Much of the newer work is in essay form.   Geographer Derek Alderman, for example, has investigated the issue of commemorative street naming focusing on Martin Luther King, Jr., in a series of articles in professional geography journals.   Some recent work has been collected in anthologies, such as Myth, Memory, and the Making of the American Landscape (2001), edited by archaeologist Paul A. Shackel; Social Memory and History: Anthropological Perspectives (2002), edited by Jacob J. Climo and Maria G. Cattell; and Places of Commemoration : Search for Identity and Landscape Design (2001), edited by Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn.   What all this work tends to have in common is an effort to map individual commemorative sites within larger contexts of remembrance – landscapes, geographic and administrative units, and social networks created by tourism, professions, and other factors.

            This should remind us that commemoration entails not only building, naming, or shaping physical sites.   Commemoration as a practice also involves ritual acts in and occupations of public space as well as other kinds of performance and consumption that may leave no lasting trace on the landscape.   W. Lloyd Warner’s classic study The Living and the Dead: A Study of the Symbolic Life of Americans (1959) was an early examination of the role of patriotic parades and other symbolic observances in civic life.   David Glassberg’s American Historical Pageantry : The Uses of Tradition in the Early Twentieth Century (1990) examined the craze for commemorative pageants in the beginning of the past century, but this phenomenon has a long history in the U.S.   David Waldstreicher’s In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes : The Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820 (1997) and Sarah J. Purcell’s Sealed with Blood: War, Sacrifice, and Memory in Revolutionary America (2002) both showed that in the early national period, festivals and anniversaries helped overcome partisan and class divisions and cement a national identity.   In our own time, new electronic media have greatly expanded and altered the terrain of commemoration.   Marita Sturken’s Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering (1997) has made a pioneering contribution in this area; her study examined commemoration across many different media, by charting the ways in which memories of the victims of national crises circulated throughout American culture in films, monuments, medical practices, and domestic grieving turned public.   Yet George Lipsitz’s Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture (1990) has argued that even in age dominated by television and commercial culture, popular traditions of storytelling and festivity among disenfranchised groups, such as working-class blacks in New Orleans, have still played a part in upholding their own versions of the past.

            All these diverse commemorative practices come together most powerfully around the remembrance of war.   It is no surprise that much of the literature on commemoration in the U.S. deals with war and its aftermath.   G. Kurt Piehler’s Remembering War the American Way (1995) has remained a useful synthetic study, but the literature has grown to the point where synthesis now seems quixotic.   The memory of the Civil War has stood out as a particularly fertile topic.   In recent years a great deal of work has been done on memory and race, as scholars from numerous angles have shown how the commemoration of the Civil War helped to shape new racial relations within American society – removing African American soldiers from mainstream public memory, defeating the dream of racial equality, and advancing the cause of white supremacy.   David W. Blight’s ambitious synthesis Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2001) has become the indispensable reference for this argument.   The book surveys an enormous range of commemorative practices from oratory to pageantry to monuments and beyond.   More specialized studies of the racial relations of war memory include Kirk Savage, Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America (1997), Paul A. Shackel, Memory in Black and White: Race, Commemoration, and the Post-Bellum Landscape (2003), and Mitch Kachun, Festivals of Freedom : Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915 (2003).   Recent studies have made ever more nuanced analyses that interweave the issue of race with gender, class, and region.   Exemplary collections along these lines include Where These Memories Grow : History, Memory, and Southern Identity (2000), edited by W. Fitzhugh Brundage, and Monuments to the Lost Cause : Women, Art, and the Landscapes of Southern Memory (2003), edited by Cynthia Mills and Pamela H. Simpson.

        In addition to reshaping racial relations and beliefs, the scale of the Civil War dramatically changed and expanded commemorative practices, creating a new cult of the veteran and new modes and technologies of remembering the war dead – innovations that preceded comparable developments in Europe by years or even decades.   For the first time, photographers shot images of battlefield corpses, a profound shift in the understanding and memorialization of warfare analyzed in studies such as Timothy Sweet, Traces of War : Poetry, Photography, and the Crisis of the Union (1990) and Alan Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs : Images as History, Mathew Brady to Walker Evans (1989).   The emergence of veterans organizations and their role in promoting the memory of the common soldier have been explored in Stuart McConnell’s Glorious Contentment : the Grand Army of the Republic, 1865-1900 (1992) and in Cecilia Elizabeth O'Leary’s To Die For : The Paradox of American Patriotism (1999).    Kirk Savage in Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves has examined the resulting democratization of war memorials, and the phenomenal spread of a new type of ordinary-soldier monument.   Another innovation, the creation of national soldier cemeteries such as Gettysburg, was briefly examined as a precedent for twentieth-century European practices by historian George Mosse’s Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (1990).   Since then this line of research has been extended by others such as Susan-Mary Grant in a series of essays, most recently in the journal Nations and Nationalism (2005).

            Battlefields too have been witness to dramatically changing patterns of commemoration, and thus have posed intricate problems for their stewards, most notably the National Park Service.   Edward T. Linenthal in Sacred Ground: Americans and their Battlefields (1991) examined the ways in which battlefields from the Revolution to WWII have been transformed into “sacred” landscapes which various groups fight to protect from political or racial or commercial defilement.   Any commemorative narratives that stray from the narrowly defined script of military heroism become suspect.   For instance the National Park Service’s efforts to expand the historical significance of Civil War battlefields beyond military history into social and political issues such as slavery have encountered resistance both inside and outside the agency, as Paul Shackel has shown in his case study of Manassas ( Memory in Black and White ).   More recently Jim Weeks in Gettysburg : Memory, Market, and an American Shrine (2003) has called into question the notion of the sacred by arguing that tourism and the marketplace have profoundly shaped even the most revered battlefield from its very inception.   He has shown that, as cultural norms have changed, the standards of appropriate commemorative behaviors have also changed – sometimes in surprising ways.   For example, battle reenactments originated as commercial entertainments that elites discouraged as frivolous, but in the past two decades have grown into a wildly popular participatory sport, with ever more stringent standards of authenticity.   Ironically, the hundreds of regimental and officer monuments that were once the heart of the commemorative landscape have now become intrusions into the “authentic” experience of the past!

            Besides battlefield reenactments, another major new participatory phenomenon of memorialization is the spontaneous offering of personal mementos at national memorials, which began in the early 1980s at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.   Kristin Ann Hass has examined the roots and meanings of this phenomenon in Carried to the Wall: American Memory and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1998).   At the same time recovery efforts and reverence for the bodies of the war dead have reached new extremes of emotional and financial cost, as Thomas M. Hawley has recently investigated in The Remains of War : Bodies, Politics, and the Search for American Soldiers Unaccounted for in Southeast Asia (2005).   All of these developments indicate an extension and transformation of the popular sphere of memory practices of the late nineteenth century.   Ordinary citizens increasingly have become the subject and the actor in commemorative initiatives, even as the power and cost of the “military-industrial complex” have grown mightily.

            In recent times the remembrance of war has become connected almost inextricably with the issue of trauma.   Once again the Holocaust and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial have served as the key landmarks in this process.   Young’s Texture of Memory and Sturken’s Tangled Memories have shed light on the new importance of victimization within commemorative practices.   Geographer Kenneth E. Foote’s study Shadowed Ground: America's Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy (1997) examined how Americans have dealt with landscapes marked by war, mass murder, and other traumatic events.   In a related development, the remembering and forgetting of Indian removal, confinement, and extermination have become increasingly important subjects in studies of national historic sites such as Dispossessing the Wilderness : Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (1999) by Mark David Spence,   and The Politics of Hallowed Ground : Wounded Knee and the Struggle for Indian Sovereignty (1999) by Mario Gonzalez and Elizabeth Cook-Lynn.   Edward Linenthal has created the most extensive body of work on trauma and commemoration, in a series of meticulously researched books on subjects spanning from the late nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first: Sacred Ground , Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America's Holocaust Museum (1995), and The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory (2001).   Since 9-11, the subject has become even more important, and numerous scholars have already entered the field.   Two new examples include Savage’s study of the “therapeutic memorial” in an essay in the collection Terror, Culture, Politics:   Rethinking 9/11 , edited by Daniel Sherman and Terry Nardin (2006), and Terry Smith’s examination of the contemporary struggle over iconic architecture in Architecture of Aftermath (2006).

            While work on commemoration continues to multiply, and to examine ever more carefully how memory practices penetrate all facets of our collective life, much work remains to be done on the actual impact of all these practices.   Few scholars have attempted to theorize the relationship between commemoration and tradition, what we might call the exterior and interior faces of historical consciousness.   On the one hand are public sites and rituals of memory, and on the other hand are ingrained habits of thought and action that persist in individuals, families, and communities across long spans of time.     While few scholars would agree with Nora that interior memory has disappeared, most scholars have focused on the exterior struggles to construct memory in one form rather than another.   One of the only scholars to argue against this trend has been social scientist Barry Schwartz, who has written a series of articles and books on American Presidents in historical memory.   In Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory (2000) Schwartz has argued that memory is not constructed anew in each new commemorative project; instead, he has asserted that in a democratic society historical facts have serious weight and help create “core elements” of memory that persist over long periods of time.   Yet his belief in an authentic “core” memory led him, ironically, to downplay certain historical facts, such as the outright fraud and hucksterism involved in “assembling” the log cabin in which Lincoln was supposedly born.   (For more on the log cabin story, see Dwight Pitcaithley’s meticulously researched essay in Shackel’s Myth, Memory, and the Making of the American Landscape .)   In fact, historical errors and deliberate distortions abound in the landscape of commemoration, as James W. Loewen’s amazing study, Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong (1999), has so amply demonstrated.   But Schwartz’s point remains well taken: scholars must take into account not only the changing politics of commemoration but also the stubborn persistence of traditions and beliefs – some of which persist even when they conflict with historical fact or common sense.  

            This perspective might have helped scholars prepare better for the emotionally charged controversy over the Smithsonian’s ill-fated Enola Gay exhibit, which was intended to mark the 50 th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima by putting the event in historical context.   The controversy was a particularly dramatic example of how the work of historians, based on supposedly apolitical principles of evidence and analysis, came into conflict with powerful “memory constituencies,” whose long-cherished beliefs about the righteousness of the American military cemented their group identities as veterans and patriots.    Edward T. Linenthal and Tom Englehardt’s History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past (1998) untangled this controversy and showed how the partisan politics and “culture wars” of the time helped fuel it.   At the same time the book showed how the Enola Gay fiasco was not simply another episode in the “politics of commemoration.”   The controversy transcended the politics of the moment and became a classic confrontation between history and collective memory – anticipated in Halbwachs’ original distinction – where history inevitably loses precisely because it lacks the unshakeable beliefs of psychically invested constituencies.   Some of the contributors to History Wars asked whether the “patriotic” narratives of commemoration could be expanded and humanized to encompass the multiple realities of war, to bring the longstanding traditional stories of triumph into contact with more tragic stories of the human cost and moral ambiguity of warfare.   The question has no easy answer.

            One pioneering effort to integrate the various realms of internal and external memory, of invisible traditions and visible histories, is Martha Norkunas’s Monuments and Memory: History and Representation in Lowell, Massachusetts (2002).   Her book traced the changing relationship between the public, mostly masculine face of memory in Lowell – in honorific monuments and historical sites – and the largely oral traditions, passed on by women, that preserved the memory of those who kept the community intact and functioning outside the public eye.   While her study would benefit from more analysis of the interaction between these realms of memory, her book points in a useful direction.   Likewise, Bodnar’s distinction between vernacular and official memory remains intuitively useful, but needs further refinement, retesting, and revision in order to understand better how these realms of memory interpenetrate one another.   This might help explain, for example, the persistence and power of military commemoration.   How does the inner/vernacular memory of women, ethnic groups, and other ordinary Americans help support the outer/ official   memory of such a quintessentially top-down, masculine institution as the military? Pursuing questions like these would eventually help bridge the gap between the spectacular “politics of commemoration” and the more inconspicuous workings of tradition.   How the past is produced, consumed, internalized, and acted upon will no doubt remain a rich and complex problem for scholars as they work further to extend and integrate the approaches outlined in this essay.

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Memory, trauma, and history.

Essays on Living with the Past

Michael S. Roth

Columbia University Press

Pub Date: November 2011

ISBN: 9780231145695

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Roth rules! A compulsive peeper into the corners of the historical past, he is the visual historian's historian. Not only because Roth is smart, not only because he finds odd things that captured people's attention in the past, not only because he is theoretically sophisticated without being dogmatic, but also because as a thinker and writer he is always able to engage his audience on every topic. Sander L. Gilman, Emory University

With critical agility and grace, Roth's life-affirming and judicious work urges us to absorb the critical lessons of postmodern irony and resist the lure of cold and superior sophistication in favor of efforts to find meaning in ever renewed inquiries into who we think we are and what we want to be. Carolyn J. Dean, Brown University, author of Aversion and Erasure: The Fate of the Victim after the Holocaust

In this excellent work, Roth provides sobering antidotes to recent hyperboles, claiming the most abject forms of victimization and trauma have recently become the ultimate forms of legitimation. A lucid, boldly interdisciplinary book, Roth's work will stimulate exchange among historians, critical theorists, literary critics, students of visual culture, and all readers concerned about the fate of liberal education. Dominick La Capra, Cornell University

This collection revises our normal conceptions of the relation between 'history' and 'the past.' Roth's essays challenge us to rethink the links among history, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and the body. Hayden White, University of California, Santa Cruz

exceptional and wide-ranging Robert Eaglestone, Times Higher Education

Not only does it stand out as a profound interdisciplinary study on the multilayered facets of (collective) memory and its (re)construction, but it is in itself a valuable record of contemporary discourses on memory, since its essays were written over more than twenty years. David Kerler, Modern Language Review

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About the Author

• World History
• European Literature
• Literary Studies
• Continental Philosophy
• Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Theory

RCCS Annual Review

A selection from the Portuguese journal Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais

Home Issues 1 Articles History, Memory and Forgetting: P...

History , Memory and Forgetting: Political Implications *

Researchers have raised questions about recovering traumatic situations such as the Holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima, the Vietnam war or the fratricidal massacres in Yugoslavia. Although some classic studies have identified important aspects relating to history and memory, there are several ways of dealing with the past, all of which involve interests, power and exclusion. The politics of just memory with regard to crimes committed in the past, a debate in which various academic areas as well as society in general have been involved, depends on processes of selection and also on elements which extend beyond the scope of human reason. It is necessary to find a balance between an obsession with the past and attempts to impose forgetting. Our aim, therefore, is to extend our understanding of history, memory and forgetting, emphasizing their limits as well as their ethical and moral implications.

Index terms

Keywords: , editor's notes.

Translated by Sheena Caldwell Revised by Teresa Tavares

Introduction

* Article published in RCCS 79 (December 2007).

1 The aim of this article is to investigate the impasses between memory and forgetting that are present in debates on the preservation and dissemination of archives associated with conflicts, wars and periods of political oppression. The debate on justice for crimes committed in the past, in which various academic areas as well as society in general have been involved, is greatly aided by documents and testimonies, although it is not solely dependent on them. However, societies do not always choose to remember. Our aim, clearly, is not to devote this entire discussion to remembering and forgetting, but rather to extend our understanding of these terms, and this also implies establishing their limits.

2 The first part of this article is based on the work of sociologists, historians and philosophers such as Maurice Halbwachs, Pierre Nora and Paul Ricoeur on collective memory. Historical narratives that preside over the organisation of archives, collections and museums remind us of what has passed or, in other words, what is no longer present amongst us. However, they do not reveal an absolute truth; instead they lead us to the process of constructing collections on the basis of conflicting interests. Memory operates as a selective process and may become a political weapon for the victims of war and genocide when forgetting has established its hegemony.

3 The second part of this article deals with cases in which more than one selective process is involved in what is to be remembered. Authors such as Georges Bataille and Max Scheler present situations in which individuals and communities may be incapable of conveying what they have learned from experience and pain when looking back at the past. Memory does not merely obey reason, since it is also related to inherited traditions which form part of our identity and which we cannot control and, in addition, to deep feelings such as love, hate, humiliation, pain and resentment, which emerge independently of our will.

4 As a result of these challenges, the third part of this article presents various historical situations in which alternatives are being constructed with the aim of overcoming the distance between the past and the present and to establish an agenda in which remembering is linked to the possibility of forgetting.

1. The selective process of memory

• 1 Maurice Halbwachs established the main theoretical arguments in support of the collective nature of (...)

5 Maurice Halbwachs was the first sociologist to redeem the topic of memory for the field of social interaction. 1 Rejecting the idea current at the time that memory was the result of the impression of real events on the human mind, he established the thesis that people weave their memories together on the basis of the various forms of interaction that they engage in with other individuals . Therefore, certain memories are repeated within the family, others among workers in a factory and so on. As individuals do not belong only to one group but are involved in multiple social relationships, the individual differences in each memory express the results of each person’s trajectory throughout their lives. Individual memory only reveals the complexities of the social interrelations experienced by each person.

6 The general merit of Halbwachs’ work, therefore, was to show that individual memory cannot be separated from collective memories. The individual alone does not have control over recovering the past. Memory is formed by individuals interacting with each other and by social groups, and individual memories are the result of this process. Even though the individual may think that their memory is strictly personal, as it recalls events in which only they were involved or facts and objects which only they witnessed and experienced, it is, in fact, collective since the individual, even if alone, is the product of social interactions and views the world through collective constructs such as language. If lost in the same desert, two individuals from different cultural traditions will have different memories, descriptions and feelings associated with their experiences. These will not, strictly speaking, be individual since, as Halbwachs affirms, the individual is never alone.

7 I n making memory the subject of the social sciences Halbwachs reiterates Durkheim’s argument on the predominance of collective over individual consciousness. This emphasis by Halbwachs on collective representations has been theoretically counterbalanced by others who have investigated the involvement of social agents in interactive processes. Memory, tradition and history are conceived by some authors to be collective representations actively formed by social actors. The collection of articles compiled by David Middleton and Derek Edwards consolidates the interactionist approach to studies on collective memory (Middleton and Edwards, 1990). Yet, despite the differences, both Halbwachs’s study of the social frameworks for memory and the interactionist approaches to collective memory show that neither historical truth nor spontaneous memory really exist.

8 Aware of these concerns, in the 1980s Nora edited an anthology of articles in which the authors explored “places of memory” in France or, in other words, symbolic places made by and making the French nation. The objects of study were not documentary sources or individual memories but evidence from past eras, including the founding of museums, archives, cemeteries, celebrations, collections and so on. Also relevant for the debate on collective memory was the distinction made by Nora between history and memory (Nora, 1984). In his introduction to the anthology, nowadays considered a standard reference work for studies in this area, Nora contrasts different approaches to the past. In his opinion, history corresponds to a modern acceleration of time, meaning that events are perceived as ephemeral, transitory and belonging to a homogenous time . He points out the limits of this historiography, which he describes as a logical and linear narrative , devoid of any content relating to the past. In contrast to history, collective memories are linked to ongoing movements and recollections transmitted from one generation to another. Nevertheless, they also have their limitations in terms of understanding the past, since individuals are not aware that their own perceptions transform the past. Individual or collective memory is vulnerable to manipulation (Nora, 1984; Davis and Starn, 1989) and therefore both history and memory are limited in their access to the past.

9 In the distinction he makes between history and memory, Nora contextualises the different ways of looking at the past. He shows that , with modernity, perceptions of time and historical narratives follow the processes of time acceleration. Walter Benjamin, in his reflections on history, had already pointed out the limits of the historical approach which listed facts and events over homogenous time. Benjamin understood that the transmission of collective representations from individual to individual over time and space would become increasingly sparse and discontinuous (Benjamin, 1968). Another important author in terms of contextualizing historical narratives was the German historian Reinhart Koselleck. In his view, modernity is differentiated by the concept of the “new,” which makes each moment unique and independent in relation to those which preceded it. The modern world is distinguished from the old because it is full of singular characteristics and is always open to the possibility of the future. This “time future,” independent of everyday experience constructed over centuries, entails a break between the present and the past and banishes everything that has gone before it (Koselleck, 1985).

2 For a critique of detraditionalisation, see Santos, 1998.

10 The belief in this hiatus between past and present and in the ongoing reconstruction of the past by the present is taken to its extreme by scholars exploring the concept of detraditionalisation. Authors such as Anthony Giddens (1990), Ulrich Beck et al. (1994) and Scott Lash (1998) argue that contemporary individuals possess great autonomy in relation to traditions, being detached and free to engage in new experiences. For them, contemporary societies are characterised by an accelerated pace of change, and the uniqueness of individuals is defined by their distance from collective past experiences. In contrast to Benjamin’s pessimism, they believe that the more unstable and shifting social interactions are, the more important individual actions or, in other words, their capacity for choice and decision-making, become. In this context, historical narratives reflect an ongoing process of selection and reconstruction of traces of the past. 2 Therefore, for these authors both history and memory deal with the discontinuity of modern time. Obviously there are still authors who believe in communication between past and present. The French philosopher Paul Ricœur was able not only to contextualise but also to skilfully interweave memory, history and forgetting. In his view, memory is an ongoing task that is always able to superimpose itself on pre-established structural processes (Ricœur, 2000).

11 Our aim in this article is to show that there is a significant diversity of approaches to the past, almost all of which are permeated by tensions, conflicts and disputes. Memory, history and forgetting are necessary experiences which neither blend nor complement one another. Nowadays we find ourselves far removed from both the notion of history as a faithful record of the past and the reduction of memory to a kind of selective reconstruction of the past. Therefore, the fundamental step that must be taken is to understand that there is nothing natural in the reconstruction of the past.

12 The building up of archives, the classification of data and the organisation of events and celebrations are activities involving memory that play an essential role in the society in which we live. At any given time there is always an ongoing and significant political struggle associated with the creation and preservation of archives relating to periods of domination and violence in which human rights were abused. Throughout the 20 th century, the major demand of the victims of totalitarian and repressive governments found expression in movements to reclaim memory. Archives, artefacts and accounts of the past have been used as proof of a past that was deliberately forgotten in official versions of history, in an attempt to summon up everything that had been left in the limbo of history. Memory is therefore associated with those who wield power, since they decide which narratives should be remembered, preserved and disseminated.

• 3 The couple César Teles and Maria Amélia Teles, the sister of the latter, Criméia Almeida, and their (...)
• 4 Despite the strong movement of the “Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo”, it was only in 2005 that Argenti (...)
• 5 In Uruguay, it was only in 2006, 21 years after the re-establishment of democracy, that the Public (...)

13 In Latin America in the 1 980s, military dictatorships were succeeded by democratic governments. In various countries legislation was introduced to provide for amnesties and pardons, enabling former opponents of the regime to be reintegrated, but at the same time preventing the trial of those who had been responsible for torture and other barbaric crimes. It is only in recent years that the pacts for pardon and forgetting have begun to be reviewed. In 2006, for the first time in Brazil, victims of kidnapping and torture under the military regime, whose lives had been brutally maimed, questioned the Amnesty Law that had been passed in 1979. 3 In Argentina, it is only in recent years that the so-called pardon laws have been questioned, and the courts have begun to review the crimes committed by state employees associated with the military dictatorship. 4 This has also happened in Uruguay and Chile. 5

14 The various debates on truth and reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa can also be understood as the result of a tenuous political agreement that is seeking to establish itself. The power contained in memories is so strong and complex that even the opposition, when it comes into power, cannot always encourage remembrances of the past that have been repressed. In the midst of the hatred and resentment that accumulated over many generations, what can be remembered? As tools of power, memory and forgetting have been used by various governments, both totalitarian and democratic, in order to secure political control over opposing forces. Forgetting has therefore also served as a political strategy used by democratic governments at particular moments. The previous examples are important because they show us that the associations between memory, autonomy and liberty, on the one hand, and forgetting and authoritarianism on the other hand, cannot be generalised.

15 The behaviour of the United States during the Vietnam War has not yet been properly and publicly debated in world forums, and it may be said that there is a lot to be remembered. The autobiography of Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense at the time, (2006), makes it clear that the many mistakes that were made have still not been properly judged. Those who supported the decisions to carry out a devastating massacre of Vietnamese civilians using napalm, toxic gases and bombing on a massive scale are still close to power. The moral blindness that still prevails today over Vietnam may be associated, on the one hand, with the continuity of the power of the United States in international affairs and, on the other hand, the inability of American society to distance itself from the crimes that have been committed. Archives and evidence are therefore undeniably important to the various opposing forces, and their political implications are significant in political disputes.

2. Facing the impossibility of remembering the past

6 See White (1987), amongst others.

16 As initially stated, not everything that relates to the past is the object of present-day negotiation. The latest historiographical approaches have made the search for the past more complex than just the interplay of present-day interests. Authors such as Hayden White, in abolishing the search for an original, non-linguistic presence, reduce all approaches to attempts at interpretation that are restricted to the domain of language. 6 This not only relativises narratives concerning the nature of an event, but also their political implications. One of the characteristics of contemporary historiography is the systematic revision of political conflicts in the modern era. In France, in addition to revising major events associated with the French Revolution, the legacy of the Vichy government is constantly being reinterpreted.

17 Some researchers also study memory in situations involving extreme aggression and violence. In this case, the inability of the victims to respond has been observed. Incapable of understanding the experiences they have lived through or of ascribing meaning to them, they become unable to use their memories selectively. Memory therefore cannot be reduced to a political tool; it extends beyond attempts to control it.

18 Attempts to recover traumatic situations such as those which took place during the Holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima, the Vietnam war, or the fratricidal massacres in Yugoslavia have had the disturbing effect of draining these catastrophic events of the sense of tragedy they contained in the past. In the words of Georges Bataille, revealing the effects of the Hiroshima bombing became the opposite of revealing the facts (Bataille, 1995: 228-229). That is to say, human representation of this catastrophe is not capable of accurately conveying the dimensions of the event and, instead, has the perverse effect of making banal something that is not so. In his view, as there are no words to describe the horror, the feeling of horror cannot be the starting point for attempts to describe this horror ( ibidem ). In providing an explanation of what has happened, the history that is recounted serves to justify unjustifiable violence and banish it from the collective imagination.

19 The possibility of representing reality is always a challenge. We may understand that there are no words to describe horror and that those who try to explain it end up by eliminating any possibility of facing or repairing the tragedy. Individuals find refuge in action, but do not always resolve problems related to violence and suffering, which are basic components of human life. Researchers in various academic areas have been involved in studying the possibilities of reconstructing and explaining trauma.

20 Freud and Lacan have both shown in their own way that individuals do not have full control over their memories; they may return to them repeatedly without any desire on their part for this to happen, or they may disappear without the option of recall. For Freud, trauma is a consequence either of the devastating nature of an event or the psychic apparatus of the individual, which may not be prepared to respond to certain stimuli (Freud, 1955). When a particularly powerful stimulus acts on us, we may not be capable of responding to it. It breaks down our protective barriers to become part of our actual being and we are not able to defend ourselves against it. Our self-awareness fails. This explains the nightmares that repeatedly return, leaving individuals drained and unable to defend themselves. Past aggression returns in flashbacks, nightmares and other similar phenomena; it is the cause of certain symptoms, namely repetitive actions that aim to reduce the stress caused by the initial aggression.

21 In addition, the works of Nietzsche and Scheler help us to understand attitudes that overstep every moral limit that can be expected of human beings. Memory and forgetting also involve ethical and moral issues. Scheler, in his study on resentment, indicates how profound experiences related to suffering and humiliation can lead to a highly contagious feeling of vengeance and rancour (Scheler and Frings, 1994). In relating a traumatic experience to the identity of its subject, we may see that his attitude towards the past does not revolve solely around the knowledge of what he has left behind. Memory cannot be considered only as a reconstructed past. It may make the individual relive an experience and evoke new desires and emotions that may be extremely negative and self-destructive. Returning to the past may include the possibility of understanding, but it equally revives feelings that had previously been repressed. Even if representation is possible, we must enquire whether it is desirable, and if it is possible to integrate the trauma into our lives in a connected rather than pathological manner.

22 How do we respond, for example, to the issue raised by Taussig when he denounces the brutal decimation of the American Indians by the Spanish following their arrival in America? This anthropologist correctly argues that the conquest had already taken place and did not require such violence (Taussig, 1986). How are we to understand the Holocaust? How do we explain the massacre of the Tutsis in Rwanda? What can be said about the attitude of the Serbs in Kosovo? The more historians search for explanations for barbarities that have been committed, the more these excesses seem to remain beyond our logical and rational comprehension.

23 Some researchers believe that in cases of extreme violence there may be a direct relationship between event and representation. Like Bataille, Friedländer also argues that extreme violence has its own unique characteristics. The extermination of the Jews cannot be the object of theoretical discussion; it was a unique event and needs to be recorded as such. Since recollection of the traumatic event is, in most cases, extremely faithful and rigorous in its use of detail, it offers direct access to the real. Therefore, Friedländer believes that the Shoah, due to its excess, can be conveyed without distortion or banality. The extreme violence of the Holocaust has enabled historians to reorganise their understanding of the real. According to the author, since excess is beyond the individual’s imaginative and representational capabilities, since it has no limits and is beyond representation, it speaks for itself (Friedländer, 1992). What the individual describes is not a construction of an event experienced in the past, but the event itself. Representation of the real without mediation is present in the testimony of traumatic situations. The evidence of the “present” is possible because awareness has been deactivated.

24 Archives, testimonies, statements and records are brought to light with the aim of conveying to future generations the absurdity of unnecessary violence. The Yad Vashem archives and memorial in Jerusalem contains the largest amount of information on the Holocaust in the world, and nowadays plays an important political role in denouncing and condemning those involved in the Hitler regime. Various other archives have a similar role. The International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims in Copenhagen also houses an important collection of statements and information on human rights violations that have occurred in more recent wars, such as those in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Organisations are founded to fight against the arbitrariness of oblivion by recovering names and restoring the facts that can still be remembered. The role of these archives is not to explain what cannot be explained, but to keep alive the memory of what cannot be repeated.

25 We may therefore arrive at the conclusion that there is no final ruling on memory. In some cases forgetting may not only be a choice, but also a given fact. Moreover, despite the exceptional nature of traumatic situations, more than a few authors have identified them in contemporary everyday life. Walter Benjamin’s description of the experience of shock is one of the earliest and most powerful images of the modern individual, fragmented and unable to react to the stimuli he encounters (Benjamin, 1973).

3. The response of the new historiography

26 In recent years , contemporary historiography has sought to respond to the question posed by Georges Bataille. Historians working in the field of present-day history, and especially oral history, have been concerned with constructing a space within historical narrative in which subjectivity, feelings and human experience can be valued. This concern has translated, on the one hand, into ongoing efforts to uncover the most subtle and camouflaged forms of domination – very often established through the actual social process of constructing memory/ies - and, on the other hand, the salvaging of memories, experiences and existences that have been hidden and silenced. The new historiography gives a voice to those who do not feature in documentary records, enabling group histories to be recovered on a small scale. Through accounts constructed on the basis of the personal trajectory of each individual, which, though partial, contain depth and moral outlines associated with this subjectivity, they seek out elements that have evaded other forms of analysis (Thompson, 1992).

27 In the text “ Memória, esquecimento, silêncio ” [Memory, Forgetting, Silence] (1989) Michel Pollak draws our attention to the processes of domination and submission within different versions and memories, pointing out the rift between the dominant official memory and the “underground memories” marked by silence, the unsaid and resentment. This rift may appear not only in relations between a dominating state and civil society, but also in relations between an inclusive society and minority groups. “Forbidden,” “unspeakable” or “shameful” memories very often contradict the most legitimate and powerful of all collective memories: national memory.

28 In this context, the research of Henri Rousso and Alessandro Portelli proves very interesting. Rousso studied the “framing” processes of the French national memory – involving concealment and political reconstruction, principally with regard to the Second World War, the Resistance and collaborationism. He shows that both collaboration and the Vichy government were relegated to the margins of the national memory, forgotten and, worse, concealed (Rousso, 1987).

29 Portelli, in a text well known to researchers working with oral history, studied the different “layers” to the memory of a massacre carried out by German soldiers in the small Italian city of Civitella. To the Italian government, Civitella was a symbol of resistance to fascism, and the anniversary of the massacre was commemorated with national honours. However, Portelli discovered an underground memory in the statements of local residents that had been hidden and was very different from the official memory. Surviving local residents felt that the massacre was due to the irresponsibility of partisan militants, who had killed some German officers and left the population exposed to Nazi vengeance. This local memory did not fit with the official memory which praised the heroism of the small town and was therefore concealed (Portelli, 1996).

30 The warning given by the French historian Pierre Ansart (2001) applies perfectly to the studies produced by Rousso and Portelli: “We must consider the rancour, envy, desire for vengeance and phantoms of death. ” Ansart’s aim is to incorporate the “shadowy, disturbing, frequently terrifying” aspects of past experience into historical narrative. Basing his arguments in particular on Nietzsche, Ansart proposes to researchers a history of resentment, a history which takes into account, for example, the experience of humiliation and fear as driving forces behind human action and reaction.

31 These four authors engage with the political trauma resulting from genocide, dictatorship and tyranny. In our opinion, many important contributions to this theme have come from researchers involved in oral history, women’s history and anthropology. We would now like to comment on some of these works – several of which are still in the research and conclusion stages.

7 An expression coined by the English historian Paul Thompson, 1992.

32 The first work we wish to analyse is that of Silvia Salvatici, an Italian researcher who is studying the impact of violence of the Kosovo war through oral statements supplied by immigrants. Two of her texts have been published in the Revista de História Oral : “ Memórias de gênero: reflexões sobre a história oral de mulheres ” [Gendered Memories: Reflections on Women’s Oral History] and “ Narrativas de violência no Kosovo do pós-guerra ” [Narratives of Violence in Post-war Kosovo] (Salvatici, 2005a e 2005b). In the two works, which complement each other to a significant extent, Salvatici identifies an important issue: the new and revealing focus that is brought to bear on the construction of historical narrative through women’s statements. She emphasises the fact that oral history and women’s history have developed together and have mutually reinforced each other. Both emerged out of a concern to salvage what had not been recorded for history and which, in most cases, relied only on testimony and oral statements to be remembered and understood. Both fields were concerned with rescuing this “ voice of the past ” 7 and giving it a place in history. For researchers of oral history and women’s history this was a militant, political concern, and when both fields intersected, history actually encountered something new.

33 In her empirical research, Salvatici shows us the richness of experiences marked by female subjectivity and gender-based behaviour and stances determined by a war situation. She reproduces the statements of women who had been in concentration camps, worked for the resistance and lived through civil wars, bringing to history a whole aspect of human experience in times of war and domination that had previously been unknown and hidden. Events and experiences involving rape, clandestine childbirth, abortion, care of the sick, protection of children, the hoarding of food, making of clothes or even disguises, and improvised ways of coping with cold and hunger in times of extreme scarcity now enter history. Other statements by women describe the experiences of clandestine love , kisses exchanged across the barricades, hasty marriages, lonely pregnancies, the joy of successful births in precarious circumstances. The romantic side to political activities in times of war is brought to light by oral accounts and statements by women. In short, they reveal a wide range of experiences and ways of confronting war and tyranny that were previously unknown and had not appeared in historical accounts and records, or even in the statements of individuals who had lived through these situations. Most of these statements had been provided by men and were based on male experiences in prisons, concentration camps and resistance groups. The typically female experience of these types of traumatic situations could only be highlighted through a combination of oral history and women’s history. Only in this way was it possible for researchers to bring a dimension of human experience and existence to history that had been totally ignored because it was based on a female subjectivity excluded from historical narrative.

34 Another historian who has raised important questions concerning the relationship between politics and subjectivity is the South African Jonathan Grossman. His text “Violência e silêncio: Reescrevendo o futuro” [ Violence and Silence: Rewriting the Future ], also published in the Revista de História Oral, brings to light the dramatic consequences of a political process which attempted to ignore and, at certain moments, override the subjectivities of the actors involved in the political history of South Africa. Grossman’s text analyses the political process of national reconciliation and the rebuilding of the social compact in the country after the apartheid regime ended. He focuses explicitly on the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whose objective was to repair the damage caused to victims and develop a human rights policy (Grossman, 2000).

35 Grossman raises an important point: the Commission looked on everyone who had suffered at the hands of the regime – through imprisonment, torture, clandestinity, ill treatment or humiliation – as victims . These people were called upon to make statements and describe before the Commission what they had suffered. Whilst not disagreeing with the importance of this work, Grossman draws attention to the fact that countless people, particularly young people, wanted to make statements to the Commission, but not as victims. They wanted to record their achievements in the struggle, the resistance, the fight. They did not feel they were victims, but rather heroes of combat. Yet there was no place for them; their statements were not wanted or recorded. The Commission was not looking for heroes, but victims. Many of these young people rejected being turned into victims, they did not regard themselves as such and did not want this role in history. However, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission provided no space for them and was not interested in this kind of historical record.

36 Grossman draws attention to a political process that “places suffering over and above engagement and political resistance”: “ As the focus is only on pain, people who have lived through the entire experience of survival and resistance end up being reduced simply to victims, and the fact that they also survived and resisted is not taken into account” (2000: 19-20). There was a refusal on the part of these young people to accept the role of victim and a desire to affirm an identity linked to the idea of resistance. This subjectivity, for Grossman, was jettisoned from the post-apartheid political process and this was to fuel powerful currents of resentment in South African society, to the extent of dangerously compromising the success of the political reconciliation process.

37 We should now like to comment on the relevance of another work – this time from the field of anthropology – which discusses the relationship between subjectivity and politics. The book by Kimberley Theidon, an anthropologist at Harvard University who has studied Peru for many years, is significantly entitled Entre Prójimos: el conflicto armado interno y la política de la reconciliación em el Peru (2004). The book deals with the armed conflict which took place in Peru in the 1980s as a result of the political actions of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) extremist group. It is based on fieldwork undertaken in Ayacucho, a region where the Peruvian armed conflict made the greatest number of victims, most of whom were from the indigenous population. Theidon studied seven indigenous communities who had suffered and inflicted suffering. Her starting point was that the inhabitants of the indigenous communities (and sometimes entire communities) felt constrained to ally themselves either with the senderistas or the Armed Forces. It was precisely this characteristic that conferred on the Peruvian armed conflict – at least in the Ayacucho region – the status of a civil war. It set peasants and Indians allied with Sendero Luminoso against peasants and Indians who supported the Armed Forces.

38 The question that Theidon explored in her extensive fieldwork was that of civil participation in the killings and violence carried out and experienced by the indigenous peasant population: “ How did people start killing those closest to them? How did everyday life and subjectivities become militarised and demilitarised?” (Theidon, 2004) . This is the question posed in the preface to the book. Theidon specifically explores the question of the construction of subjectivity in times of civil war, the experience of social groups who have been politically abandoned, manipulated by guerrillas and the Armed Forces and involved in violent conflicts with neighbours, relatives and acquaintances. She explores despair and politics. It is interesting to note that the Peruvian armed conflict – the war between the Sendero and the Armed Forces that took place in Ayacucho – has only very recently become the object of historical and social research. Until just a short time ago this subject was an unbreakable taboo. Only now have accounts of this experience emerged and, even so, with great difficulty. Theidon describes the enormous problems she faced in obtaining oral statements about the war. Peasants and Indians did not want to talk – much less be recorded – about this subject. Very recently the subject has also been covered in Peruvian literature, a good example of which is the novel La hora azul by Alonso Cueto, which has already been translated and published in Brazil (2006). Peruvian society is beginning to take various steps towards reviewing the history of the war.

39 As it is a history that has been stifled and, in various senses, kept a secret, Theidon points out the need to be able to decode various types of language in order to study this theme. From amongst these she identifies the language of the body: it is necessary to understand an experience culturally informed by the body, she tells us. The experience of the peasants and Indians in this civil war – physical pain, torture, poverty and hunger – has been marked on the body. In her view, the body is a place of memory , a site in which important historical experiences are inscribed.

40 The theoretical and methodological question which Theidon discusses in her work is precisely this incorporation of the construction of subjectivity into historical and anthropological studies, although this means more than just valuing subjectivity in historical narrative. She goes further, proposing that subjectivity should be incorporated as a research object and tool. Her aim is to investigate the body of people (her witnesses) – how they register and relate experiences of fear, pain, humiliation and also hope, happiness, relief and pleasure; in other words, all the feelings and emotions experienced during a war.

41 This article has focused on various approaches which have made an effective contribution towards constructing the notion we have today of what history, memory and forgetting are. Yet, as the philosopher Edward Casey tells us, whatever memory is, it exceeds the scope of human reason and resists being captured in the structure of intentionality. When we need to produce an exact description of memory, it is as if we found ourselves “adrift in a virtual Sargasso Sea of linguistic confusion and oblivion” (Casey, 1987: 89).

8 See Seligmann-Silva, 2000, amongst others.

42 Faced with a range of approaches and political implications, we have aimed to emphasise that the problem for researchers exploring the past is not merely related to the search for knowledge, since it involves political and moral issues. 8 Michel Foucault’s critique of history as a means of arbitrarily establishing origins, continuity or even finality in relation to power has given rise to a broad debate on the relationship between knowledge, morality and power (Foucault, 1977). Countless researchers have been involved in denouncing narratives which, although they reveal past facts and events to present generations, reproduce domination and forms of power. The so-called objectivity and neutrality of approaches which seek to reconstitute the past on the basis of scientific methods and rigorous standards may take shape as new forms of control.

43 In short, by interweaving several interpretations of history, memory and forgetting we have aimed to show that there are various ways of dealing with the past, all of which involve interests, power and exclusion. The politics of just memory needs to strike a balance between an obsession with the past and attempts to impose forgetting.

44 Research into what has happened in the past – and the related theoretical and methodological debate – has sought in various ways to respond to the limits of representation. We hope – and are working to this end – that new paths will help us to know ourselves better, in an emancipatory and liberating sense. A history of human beings cannot be created by ignoring either the subjectivity of the human condition or its limits. This being the case, let us not let our knowledge of this subjectivity serve as a means to enable some people to create more efficient ways to control and dominate others – this is the pledge of the researchers we have considered during the course of our discussion.

Bibliography

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Bataille, George (1995), “Concerning the Accounts Given by the Residents of Hiroshima,” in C. Caruth (ed.), Trauma: Explorations in Memory . Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 221-235.

Beck, Ulrich; Giddens, Anthony; Lash, Scott (1994), Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order . Stanford, Ca.: Stanford UP.

Benjamin, Walter (1968), “Thesis on the Philosophy of History,” in Hannah Arendt (ed.), Illuminations . New York: Harcourt Brace & World, 253-264.

Benjamin, Walter (1973), Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism . London: NLB.

Casey, Edward S. (1987), Remembering: A Phenomenological Study . Bloomington: Indiana UP.

Cueto, Alonso (2006), A hora azul . Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva.

Davis, Natalie Zemon; Starn, Randolf (1989), “Introduction: Memory and Counter-Memory,” Representations , 26, 1-6.

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Freud, Sigmund (1955), “Beyond the Pleasure Principle,” in James Strachey (ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud . London: Hogarth Press, vol. 18, 3-64 [1920].

Friedländer, Saul (1992), Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the ‘Final Solution’ . Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP.

Giddens, Anthony (1990), The Consequences of Modernity . Stanford, Ca.: Stanford UP.

Grossman, Jonathan (2000), “Violência e silêncio: Reescrevendo o futuro,” História Oral, Revista da Associação Brasileira de História Oral , 3.

Halbwachs, Maurice (1925), Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire . Paris: Felix Alcan [English translation: On collective memory . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992].

Halbwachs, Maurice; Alexandre, J.H. (1950), La mémoire collective. Ouvrage posthume publié . Paris: PUF [English translation: The collective memory . New York: Harper & Row/ Colophon Books, 1980].

Koselleck, Reinhart (1985), Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time . Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Lash, Scott (1998), “ Being After Time: Towards a Politics of Melancholy,” in S. Lash; A. Quick; R.H. Roberts, Time and Value . Oxford, UK / Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 147‑161.

McNamara, Robert S. (1996), In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Vintage Books.

Middleton, David; Edwards, Derek (1990), Collective Remembering . London: Newbury Park / Ca.: Sage Publications.

Nora, Pierre (1984), Les lieux de mémoire . Paris: Gallimard.

Pollak, Michael (1989), “Memória, esquecimento e silêncio ,” Estudos Históricos , 3, 3-15.

Portelli, Alessandro (1996), “O Massacre de Civitella Val di Chiara (Toscana, 29 de junho de 1944): mito e política, luta e senso comum,” in Marieta de Moares Ferreira; Janaína Amado (eds.), Usos e abusos da história oral . Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 103-130.

Ricœur, Paul (2000), La mémoire, l'histoire, l'oubli . Paris: Seuil.

Rousso, Henri (1987), La syndrome de Vichy . Paris: Seuil.

Salvatici, Silvia (2005a), “Memórias de gênero: reflexões sobre a história oral de mulheres,” História Oral, Revista da Associação Brasileira de História Oral , 8(1), 29-42.

Salvatici, Silvia. (2005b), “Narrativas de violência no Kosovo do pós-guerra,” História Oral, Revista da Associação Brasileira de História Oral, 8(1), 115-127.

Santos, Myrian Sepúlveda dos (1998), “Sobre a autonomia de novas identidades coletivas: Alguns problemas teóricos,” Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais , 13(38), 151-165.

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1 Maurice Halbwachs established the main theoretical arguments in support of the collective nature of memory in two books that are nowadays considered standard reference works on the subject, Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire (1925) and La mémoire collective , the latter published posthumously (1950).

3 The couple César Teles and Maria Amélia Teles, the sister of the latter, Criméia Almeida, and their two children, Janaína and Édson, began legal proceedings for moral and physical damages against an agent of the security forces in the 1970s, Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra.

4 Despite the strong movement of the “Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo”, it was only in 2005 that Argentina revoked the Full Stop and Due Obedience Laws, also known as the pardon laws, which were blocking proceedings against those responsible for violating human rights. In 2006, the courts ruled that the pardon granted to former president Jorge Rafael Videla was unconstitutional. In the same year, former policeman Miguel Etchecolatz, aged 77, was sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes he had committed during the military dictatorship.

5 In Uruguay, it was only in 2006, 21 years after the re-establishment of democracy, that the Public Prosecutor’s Office requested proceedings to be initiated against soldiers and policemen responsible for crimes committed during the military dictatorship.

Electronic reference

Maria Paula Nascimento Araújo and Myrian Sepúlveda dos Santos , “ History , Memory and Forgetting: Political Implications ” ,  RCCS Annual Review [Online], 1 | 2009, Online since 01 September 2009 , connection on 10 June 2024 . URL : http://journals.openedition.org/rccsar/157; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/rccsar.157

About the authors

Maria paula nascimento araújo.

Rio de Janeiro Federal University, Brazil

Myrian Sepúlveda dos Santos

Rio de Janeiro State University, Brazil

Sheena Caldwell

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Exploring 250 Essay Topics in Biographies: From Autobiographies to Cultural and Ethnic Stories

Welcome to our comprehensive guide exploring 25 essay topics in various branches of historical inquiry. History is a multidimensional field of study that encompasses a wide range of disciplines, methodologies, and perspectives. In this article, we will delve into different branches of historical research, providing you with thought-provoking essay topics to ignite your curiosity and inspire your academic exploration.

Whether you are a history student, a researcher, or simply an enthusiast seeking to deepen your understanding of the past, these essay topics will offer you a starting point to explore and analyze significant themes and concepts within each field. From the examination of historical schools of thought to the exploration of diverse histories such as gender, culture, and postcolonialism, this collection of essay topics aims to engage with the complexity and richness of historical scholarship.

Historical Schools of Thought

Historical schools of thought refer to different theoretical frameworks and approaches used by historians to interpret and understand the past. These schools of thought offer distinct perspectives on how history should be studied, emphasizing different aspects such as political, social, economic, cultural, or intellectual factors. They provide a foundation for historical analysis and contribute to the ongoing debates and interpretations within the field of history.

Historical Schools of Thought Essay Topics

• The Enlightenment and its impact on modern political thought
• The Renaissance: A rebirth of art, science, and humanism
• The Industrial Revolution and its effects on social and economic thought
• The rise of Marxism and its influence on socialist movements
• The impact of Freudian psychoanalysis on psychology and the study of the mind
• The contributions of ancient Greek philosophers to Western philosophical thought
• The development of existentialism and its impact on philosophy and literature
• The role of the Scientific Revolution in challenging traditional religious beliefs
• The influence of the Bauhaus movement on modern architecture and design
• The feminist movement and its contribution to gender studies and social thought
• The development of the Civil Rights Movement and its impact on racial equality
• The emergence of the Romantic movement and its influence on art and literature
• The impact of the French Revolution on political ideologies and systems
• The rise of nationalism and its effects on the formation of modern nation-states
• The development of the human rights movement and its global impact
• The role of Confucianism in shaping East Asian social and ethical thought
• The Enlightenment and the birth of modern science and the scientific method
• The contributions of African-American intellectuals to the Civil Rights Movement
• The impact of Darwin's theory of evolution on religious and scientific thought
• The emergence of postmodernism and its critique of traditional knowledge systems
• The influence of the Harlem Renaissance on African-American art and literature
• The rise of colonialism and its effects on indigenous cultures and thought
• The philosophical underpinnings of the American Revolution and the founding of the United States
• The development of feminist literary criticism and its impact on literary studies
• The impact of the Enlightenment on educational systems and the spread of knowledge.

Comparative History

Comparative history involves the study and analysis of historical events, processes, or phenomena across different regions, societies, or time periods. By comparing similarities and differences, comparative historians aim to identify patterns, relationships, and causal factors that shape historical developments. This approach allows for a broader understanding of historical phenomena and offers insights into the diversity of human experiences and societies.

Comparative History Essay Topics

• A Comparative Study of Ancient Civilizations: Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Indus Valley
• Comparative Analysis of Ancient Greek and Roman Democracy
• Comparing the Byzantine and Islamic Empires: Religion, Politics, and Culture
• A Comparative Study of Feudalism in Europe and Japan
• The French Revolution and the American Revolution: A Comparative Analysis
• Comparative Examination of Colonialism in Africa and Asia
• The Industrial Revolution in Britain and Germany: A Comparative Perspective
• Comparative Study of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the Chinese Communist Revolution
• Comparative Analysis of the Civil Rights Movements in the United States and South Africa
• A Comparative Study of the Women's Suffrage Movements in the United States and Britain
• Comparing the Renaissance in Italy and the Northern European Countries
• Comparative Study of Imperialism in the British and Ottoman Empires
• The Cold War: A Comparative Analysis of the United States and Soviet Union
• Comparative Analysis of the Mayan and Inca Civilizations in the Americas
• A Comparative Study of the Age of Exploration: European and Chinese Voyages
• Comparative Analysis of the Mughal Empire in India and the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East
• Comparative Study of the Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation
• A Comparative Analysis of the Russian Revolution and the Iranian Revolution
• Comparative Study of Ancient Law Codes: Hammurabi's Code and the Twelve Tables
• Comparing the Reformation in England and Germany: Henry VIII and Martin Luther
• Comparative Analysis of the Mongol Empires: Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan
• A Comparative Study of the American Civil War and the Spanish Civil War
• Comparative Analysis of the Cultural Revolutions in China and Iran
• Comparative Study of the Indian National Congress and African National Congress
• A Comparative Analysis of the American Great Depression and the Global Financial Crisis of 2008

Oral History

Oral history is a research method that involves gathering and analyzing firsthand accounts and personal narratives of individuals who have lived through particular historical events or periods. It emphasizes the importance of capturing and preserving the voices of those often excluded from written records, providing valuable insights into their experiences, perspectives, and memories. Oral history enhances our understanding of the lived realities of individuals and communities, offering a more nuanced and inclusive historical narrative.

Oral History Essay Topics

• The Importance of Oral History: Preserving Personal and Collective Narratives
• Oral History as a Tool for Indigenous Perspectives and Decolonization
• Ethics and Challenges in Conducting Oral History Interviews
• Oral History and Memory: Examining the Reliability and Subjectivity of Oral Accounts
• Oral History and Social Change: Amplifying Marginalized Voices
• Oral History and Family Narratives: Exploring Intergenerational Transmission of Memory
• Gender and Oral History: Uncovering Women's Experiences and Perspectives
• Oral History and War: Examining the Impact of Conflicts through Personal Testimonies
• Oral History and Migration: Capturing Stories of Displacement and Identity
• Oral History and Oral Traditions: Analyzing Cultural Continuity and Change
• Oral History and Community Engagement: Empowering Local Narratives
• Oral History and Labor Movements: Documenting Worker Experiences and Activism
• Oral History and LGBTQ+ Narratives: Archiving Queer Lives and Histories
• Oral History and Holocaust Studies: Bearing Witness to Survivors' Testimonies
• Indigenous Oral Histories: Resilience, Cultural Identity, and Land Rights
• Oral History and Environmental History: Narratives of Ecological Change
• Oral History and Urban History: Capturing Urban Transformations and Neighborhood Stories
• Oral History and Civil Rights Movements: Amplifying Voices of Activism and Resistance
• Oral History and Aging: Exploring Life Stories and Perspectives on Aging
• Oral History and Disability Studies: Challenging Stereotypes and Promoting Inclusion
• Oral History and Medicine: Exploring Patient Narratives and Healthcare Experiences
• Oral History and Genocide Studies: Preserving Stories of Survival and Loss
• Oral History and Indigenous Language Revitalization: Connecting Language and Culture
• Oral History and Folklore: Uncovering Legends, Myths, and Traditional Knowledge
• Oral History and the Digital Age: Opportunities and Challenges in Archiving and Sharing Stories

Archival Research

Archival research involves the investigation and analysis of primary source materials that are preserved in archives, such as documents, letters, diaries, photographs, maps, and other records. Historians rely on archival research to access and interpret original sources that provide direct evidence of past events and activities. It enables researchers to delve into specific historical contexts, uncover hidden or neglected histories, and construct detailed and accurate narratives based on authentic documentation.

Archival Research Essay Topics

• The Importance of Archival Research in Historical Scholarship
• Exploring the Role of Archival Research in Uncovering Hidden or Neglected Histories
• The Challenges and Opportunities of Conducting Archival Research
• Comparative Analysis of Traditional and Digital Archival Research Methods
• Archival Research and the Preservation of Cultural Heritage
• The Ethics of Access and Use in Archival Research
• Archival Research and the Reconstruction of Historical Narratives
• Archival Research and the Study of Material Culture
• Archival Research in Genealogy and Family History
• Archival Research and the Study of Linguistics and Dialects
• Archival Research and the Documentation of Oral Histories
• Archival Research and the Reconstruction of Historical Landscapes
• Archival Research and the Study of Economic History and Business Records
• Archival Research and the Study of Political History and Government Documents
• Archival Research and the Examination of Social Movements and Activism
• Archival Research and the Study of Gender and Sexuality History
• Archival Research and the Exploration of Colonialism and Post-Colonial Studies
• Archival Research and the Study of Diplomatic Relations and International Affairs
• Archival Research and the Examination of Literary and Artistic Works
• Archival Research and the Study of Science and Technology History
• Archival Research and the Analysis of Environmental History
• Archival Research and the Study of Medical History and Health Records
• Archival Research and the Exploration of Religious and Spiritual Traditions
• Archival Research and the Study of Education History and School Records
• Archival Research and the Investigation of Legal History and Court Records

Quantitative History

Quantitative history employs quantitative methods and statistical analysis to study historical phenomena. It involves the collection and analysis of numerical data, such as demographic records, economic indicators, voting patterns, or crime statistics. By quantifying historical data, historians can identify patterns, trends, and correlations, enabling them to make empirical claims about historical events and processes. Quantitative history complements qualitative approaches and provides a more systematic and quantitative understanding of the past.

Quantitative History Essay Topics

• The Rise of Quantitative History: Methodological Approaches and Contributions
• Quantitative History and Demographic Analysis: Exploring Population Dynamics
• Quantitative Analysis of Economic History: Patterns, Trends, and Growth
• Quantitative Approaches to Social Inequality and Class Structure
• Quantitative History and the Study of Migration and Mobility
• Statistical Analysis of Political History: Voting Patterns and Electoral Behavior
• Quantitative Methods in Studying War and Conflict: Casualties, Strategies, and Outcomes
• Quantitative Approaches to the Study of Disease and Public Health
• Quantitative Analysis of Urbanization and Urban Development
• Quantitative History and the Study of Colonialism and Imperialism
• Quantitative Methods in Exploring Environmental History and Climate Change
• Quantitative Analysis of Technological Change and Innovation
• Quantitative Approaches to the Study of Education and Literacy
• Quantitative History and the Analysis of Cultural and Intellectual Trends
• Quantitative Methods in Studying Long-Term Trends and Historical Cycles
• Quantitative Approaches to the Study of Gender and Women's History
• Quantitative Analysis of Social Networks and Community Dynamics
• Quantitative History and the Exploration of Religious and Spiritual Practices
• Quantitative Methods in Studying Legal History and Crime Patterns
• Quantitative Approaches to the Study of Material Culture and Consumer Behavior
• Quantitative Analysis of Diplomatic Relations and International Relations
• Quantitative History and the Examination of Media and Communication
• Quantitative Methods in Exploring Family and Household Structures
• Quantitative Approaches to the Study of Intellectual Property and Copyright
• Quantitative History and the Analysis of Historical Memory and Commemoration.

Postcolonial History

Postcolonial history examines the legacies, impacts, and consequences of colonialism and imperialism on societies and cultures. It explores the experiences of colonized peoples, their struggles for independence, and the processes of decolonization. Postcolonial historians challenge Eurocentric perspectives, centering marginalized voices, and engaging with issues of power, identity, resistance, cultural hybridity, and the ongoing effects of colonial domination.

Postcolonial History Essay Topics

• Postcolonial History: Defining the Field and Key Concepts
• Decolonization and the Birth of Postcolonial Nations
• The Impact of Colonialism on Indigenous Peoples: Continuities and Disruptions
• Postcolonial Identities: Hybridity, Resistance, and Cultural Expression
• Postcolonial Feminism: Intersectionality and Gender in the Global South
• Nationalism and Anti-Colonial Movements: Case Studies from Africa, Asia, and the Americas
• Economic Legacies of Colonialism: Dependency, Exploitation, and Unequal Development
• Language and Literature in Postcolonial Contexts: Rewriting History and Reclaiming Narratives
• Postcolonialism and Environmental Justice: Ecological Consequences of Colonial Exploitation
• Postcolonial Approaches to Education: Decolonizing Curricula and Pedagogies
• Postcolonial Cities: Urban Space, Power, and Marginalization
• Postcolonial Memory and Commemoration: Remembering and Reckoning with the Colonial Past
• Postcolonialism and Global Health: Colonial Medicine, Biopower, and Health Inequalities
• Postcolonial Legal Systems: Legal Pluralism, Human Rights, and Indigenous Justice
• Postcolonial Borders: Migration, Citizenship, and Identity
• Postcolonial Resistance and Social Movements: Solidarity, Anti-Imperialism, and Liberation
• Postcolonial Media and Popular Culture: Representation, Subversion, and Stereotypes
• Postcolonial Urbanism: Infrastructure, Displacement, and Gentrification
• Postcolonial Tourism: Authenticity, Exoticism, and Power Dynamics
• Postcolonial Intellectuals: Theorizing and Critiquing the Legacy of Empire
• Postcolonial Trauma and Healing: Addressing Historical Wounds and Collective Memory
• Postcolonial Science and Technology: Knowledge Production, Appropriation, and Resistance
• Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Nature, Land, and Environmental Justice
• Postcolonialism and Global Capitalism: Neocolonialism, Dependency, and Resistance
• Postcolonial Perspectives on International Relations: Global South, Diplomacy, and Power Dynamics

Gender History

Gender history explores the ways in which gender has shaped societies, institutions, and individuals throughout history. It examines how gender roles, identities, and power dynamics have influenced social, political, economic, and cultural developments. Gender historians explore issues such as gendered labor, family dynamics, sexuality, masculinity, femininity, and the intersections of gender with other social categories such as race, class, and ethnicity.

Gender History Essay Topics

• Gender History: Exploring the Intersections of Gender, Power, and Identity
• Gendered Perspectives on Historical Methodologies and Approaches
• Gender and the Construction of Sexuality: Challenging Norms and Categories
• Gendered Experiences of Colonialism: Agency, Resistance, and Subjugation
• Gender and the Evolution of Feminism: Waves, Debates, and Transnational Movements
• Gendered Labor and Work: From the Home to the Factory and Beyond
• Masculinity Studies and the Reconstruction of Male Identity
• Gender, Religion, and Spirituality: Roles, Rituals, and Challenges to Patriarchy
• Gender and the Politics of Reproduction: Birth Control, Abortion, and Family Planning
• Gendered Violence and the Struggle for Justice: Historical Perspectives
• Gender and Education: Access, Exclusion, and the Strive for Equality
• Gender and Health: Medicalization, Reproductive Health, and Sexuality
• Transgender History: Narratives of Identity, Activism, and Resistance
• Gender and Resistance Movements: Women's Suffrage, Civil Rights, and LGBTQ+ Activism
• Gender and War: Women's Roles, Military Masculinity, and Post-Conflict Reconstruction
• Gender and Popular Culture: Representations, Stereotypes, and Subversion
• Gender and the Body: Beauty Standards, Body Politics, and Embodiment
• Gendered Spaces: Public/Private Divide, Urbanization, and Domesticity
• Intersectionality and Gender: Race, Class, and Sexuality in Historical Context
• Gender and Technology: Women's Contributions, Technological Shifts, and Digital Divide
• Gender and Resistance to Colonial Rule: Indigenous Perspectives and Movements
• Gendered Perspectives on Immigration and Diaspora: Identity, Assimilation, and Transnationalism
• Gender and Intellectual History: Contributions, Exclusions, and Challenges
• Gender and Sport: Athletics, Competitions, and Breaking Gender Barriers
• Gender and the Law: Legal Rights, Discrimination, and Activism for Equality

Social History

Social history focuses on the everyday lives, experiences, and social structures of ordinary people. It examines aspects such as social classes, labor relations, family dynamics, social institutions, and cultural practices. Social historians aim to understand the lived experiences of individuals and groups within specific historical contexts, shedding light on social relationships, power dynamics, and societal changes over time.

Social History Essay Topics

• Social History: Tracing the Lives and Experiences of Everyday People
• Social Class and Inequality: Exploring Social Stratification in Historical Context
• Family and Kinship: Changing Dynamics and Structures in Social History
• Urbanization and Social Change: Impact on Communities and Everyday Life
• Social Movements and Activism: Grassroots Organizing for Change
• Gender and Sexuality in Social History: Norms, Expectations, and Subversion
• Race and Ethnicity in Social History: Identity, Discrimination, and Intersectionality
• Religion and Society: Influence, Conflict, and Rituals in Social History
• Work and Labor: From Agrarian to Industrial to Post-Industrial Eras
• Education and Intellectual Culture: Access, Systems, and Ideals in Social History
• Health and Medicine in Social History: Public Health, Disease, and Well-being
• Social Networks and Communities: Bonds, Networks, and Social Capital
• Consumption and Consumer Culture: Materialism, Advertising, and Social Change
• Leisure and Recreation: Entertainment, Sports, and Social Identity
• Migration and Mobility: Impacts on Society and Cultural Exchange
• The Family in Social History: Changing Roles, Structures, and Dynamics
• Youth Culture: Rebellion, Identity Formation, and Countercultures
• Crime and Deviance: Social Control, Law Enforcement, and Punishment
• Social Welfare and Assistance: Evolution of Support Systems and Safety Nets
• Social History of Technology: Impact on Daily Life, Communication, and Industry
• Social History and Environmental Perspectives: Human Interactions with Nature
• Social History of Childhood: Child Labor, Education, and Changing Concepts
• Social History of Aging: Elder Care, Retirement, and Intergenerational Relationships
• Housing and the Built Environment: Architecture, Neighborhoods, and Social Cohesion
• Social History of Food and Eating: Dietary Habits, Class, and Cultural Significance

Cultural History

Cultural history investigates the beliefs, values, practices, and cultural expressions of past societies. It examines art, literature, music, rituals, symbols, and popular culture to understand how cultural ideas and practices shape and are shaped by historical contexts. Cultural historians explore the ways in which cultural dynamics intersect with social, political, economic, and intellectual dimensions, contributing to a deeper understanding of human experiences and identities.

Cultural History Essay Topics

• Cultural History: Interpreting and Analyzing the Meaning of Cultural Expressions
• Cultural Encounters and Cross-Cultural Exchanges: Exploring Cultural Interactions and Influences
• Cultural Identity and Nationalism: Constructing and Negotiating Collective Belonging
• Cultural Icons and Symbols: Analyzing the Significance and Evolution of Cultural Representations
• Popular Culture and Everyday Life: Examining Cultural Practices and Consumption Patterns
• Material Culture and Cultural Artifacts: Uncovering the Meanings and Histories of Objects
• Cultural Memory and Commemoration: Remembering and Preserving Collective Histories
• Cultural Movements and Countercultures: Subversion, Resistance, and Social Change
• Cultural Appropriation and Cultural Heritage: Debates and Ethical Considerations
• Cultural Landscapes and Urban Spaces: Tracing the Impact of Culture on Built Environments
• Cultural Performance and Ritual: Exploring the Role of Rituals and Performances in Society
• Cultural Revivals and Cultural Preservation: The Politics of Heritage and Identity
• Gender and Cultural History: Analyzing the Role of Gender in Cultural Practices and Representations
• Ethnicity and Cultural Expression: Examining the Interplay between Culture and Ethnic Identity
• Cultural History of Language and Linguistic Practices: Communication and Cultural Identity
• Cultural Responses to War and Conflict: Art, Literature, and Popular Culture
• Cultural History of Food and Cuisine: Culinary Traditions, Identity, and Globalization
• Cultural Perspectives on Religion and Spirituality: Beliefs, Practices, and Symbolism
• Cultural History of Music and Dance: Sound, Movement, and Cultural Expression
• Cultural Representations in Visual Arts: Paintings, Sculptures, and Photography
• Cultural History of Technology: Technological Innovations and Cultural Transformations
• Cultural History of Fashion: Clothing, Style, and Cultural Significance
• Cultural History of Literature: Analyzing Literary Works as Reflections of Culture and Society
• Cultural Responses to Globalization: Hybridity, Localization, and Transnationalism
• Cultural History of Sports: Sports as Social and Cultural Phenomena

Revisionist History

Revisionist history refers to the reexamination and reinterpretation of historical events, narratives, and perspectives. It involves challenging established interpretations and seeking alternative viewpoints to provide a more nuanced and accurate understanding of the past. Revisionist historians critically analyze traditional accounts of history, question prevailing assumptions, and incorporate new evidence or perspectives that may have been marginalized or overlooked. By revisiting and reevaluating historical narratives, revisionist history contributes to ongoing debates, expands our knowledge, and offers fresh insights into the complexities of the past. It encourages a more comprehensive and inclusive understanding of history by addressing biases, filling gaps in existing knowledge, and shedding light on previously marginalized voices and perspectives.

Revisionist History Essay Topics

• The Concept of Revisionist History: Exploring Its Definition and Purpose
• Revisionist History and the Reinterpretation of Historical Events
• The Role of Revisionist History in Challenging Dominant Narratives
• Revisionist Approaches to Political History: Reassessing Leaders, Movements, and Ideologies
• Revisionist Perspectives on Social History: Reevaluating Power Structures and Marginalized Groups
• Revisionist History and the Reassessment of Historical Figures: Heroes, Villains, and Complicated Legacies
• Revisionist Approaches to Cultural History: Rethinking Art, Literature, and Popular Culture
• Revisionist History and the Reinterpretation of Historical Documents and Sources
• Revisionist Perspectives on Colonial History: Decentering European Narratives
• Revisionist History and the Examination of Gender and Sexuality: Challenging Traditional Assumptions
• Revisionist Approaches to Military History: Rethinking Strategies, Tactics, and Consequences
• Revisionist History and the Reassessment of Economic Systems and Inequalities
• Revisionist Perspectives on Diplomatic History: Rethinking Alliances, Treaties, and Conflicts
• Revisionist History and the Study of Science and Technology: Examining Alternative Narratives
• Revisionist Approaches to Environmental History: Rethinking Human-Environment Interactions
• Revisionist History and the Reevaluation of Indigenous Perspectives and Histories
• Revisionist Perspectives on Medical History: Challenging Biomedical Assumptions and Practices
• Revisionist History and the Examination of Intellectual Movements and Ideas
• Revisionist Approaches to Legal History: Rethinking Laws, Justice, and Rights
• Revisionist History and the Reassessment of Historical Periodizations and Boundaries
• Revisionist Perspectives on Migration and Diaspora: Rethinking Identity, Belonging, and Borders
• Revisionist History and the Examination of Religion and Spirituality: Challenging Established Beliefs
• Revisionist Approaches to Educational History: Rethinking Pedagogies and Knowledge Transmission
• Revisionist History and the Reassessment of Historical Trauma and Memory
• Revisionist Perspectives on Global History: Rethinking Eurocentrism and Multiple Modernities

As we conclude our journey through these 25 essay topics across various branches of historical inquiry, we hope that they have sparked your interest and provided you with a glimpse into the diverse and fascinating realms of historical research. Each field offers its unique perspective, methodologies, and critical questions, inviting scholars and students alike to delve deeper into the complexities of the past.

By exploring historical schools of thought, comparative history, oral history, archival research, quantitative history, postcolonial history, gender history, social history, cultural history, and revisionist history, we have encountered a myriad of lenses through which we can view and interpret the past. These essay topics encourage us to challenge conventional narratives, explore untold stories, and engage with the diverse experiences of individuals, communities, and societies across time.

The study of history is an ever-evolving endeavor, as new evidence, methodologies, and perspectives continually shape our understanding of the past. We encourage you to seize the opportunity to engage with these essay topics, conduct further research, and embark on your own intellectual exploration of the vast tapestry of human history. Through critical analysis, empathy, and an open mind, we can contribute to the ongoing conversations that shape our collective understanding of the past and its significance for the present and future.

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Historical Nonfiction: Research-Based Writing With Hadley Meares

In this four-part workshop, learn to write your own historical essay through a research-based lens.

Course Description

Have you ever wanted to write a history of personal interest in a 1200-word, Atlas Obscura essay–type format, but didn’t know where to begin? Perhaps you’ve always wondered about the deeper story behind an old family recipe, a run-down building on your block, or a specific moment in time. This four-part online writing workshop with historical journalist Hadley Meares will equip you with the tools you’ll need to start researching and writing.

Over the course of four sessions, you’ll learn how to begin your quest, conduct research, and shape your original project. Along the way, you’ll participate in group exercises and get personalized feedback from Hadley and your fellow participants. By the end of the course, you’ll be well on your way to writing a compelling, nonfiction history that is personal to you and your interests.

Syllabus at a Glance

This course includes four total sessions, each lasting for 1.5 hours with a week between each session.  

Spring Section A: Meets Thursdays beginning April 4.

Session 1 (Thursday, 4/4, 8–9:30 PM ET): Finding your voice and your inspiration

Session 2 (Thursday, 4/11, 8–9:30 PM ET): Research methodologies from home

Session 3 (Thursday, 4/18, 8–9:30 PM ET): Essay format and shaping your narrative

Session 4 (Thursday, 4/25, 8–9:30 ET): Story sharing and feedback

Summer Section B: Meets Mondays beginning June 10.

Session 1 (Monday, 6/10, 8-9:30 PM ET): Finding your voice and your inspiration

Session 2 (Monday, 6/17, 8-9:30 PM ET): Research methodologies from home

Session 3 (Monday, 6/24, 8-9:30 PM ET): Essay format and shaping your narrative

Session 4 (Monday, 7/1, 8-9:30 E3T): Story sharing and feedback

Between Sessions

Students will be given optional assignments to complete between sessions, including brief writing prompts and exercises crafted to help aid in research and writing. You can spend as much or as little time on assignments as you'd like—this class is what you make of it!

Pricing Options

In addition to full-price tickets, a limited number of no-pay spots are available for this course. Please note that these tickets are reserved for those who would not otherwise be able to take this course and who expect to attend all sessions. No-pay spots are distributed via a randomized drawing two weeks before each course begins. For more information and to apply for a no-pay spot, please click here . To learn more about our pricing model and randomized selection process for no-pay spots, please visit our FAQ page .

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Atlas Obscura Online Courses

Atlas Obscura Courses offer opportunities for participants to emerge with new skills, knowledge, connections, and perspectives through multi-session classes designed and taught by expert instructors. To learn more about our current course offerings, please visit www.atlasobscura.com/online-courses . For answers to commonly asked questions, check out our FAQ page here .

Founded in 2009, Atlas Obscura created the definitive community-driven guide to incredible places across the planet and is now an award-winning company that shares the world’s hidden wonders in person and online.

Once registered, you’ll receive a confirmation email from Eventbrite that will provide access to each class meeting. Please save the confirmation email as you’ll use it to access all sessions of your course via Zoom.

Hadley Meares is an LA-based historical journalist, tour leader, talking head, and the host of the history podcast Underbelly LA . She is a frequent contributor to Vanity Fair , The Hollywood Reporter, Curbed , HISTORY , LAist , Los Angeles Magazine and Atlas Obscura , among other outlets.

This is an interactive, small-group seminar that meets over Zoom. Students may be encouraged to participate in discussions, work on assignments outside of class, and workshop projects with their instructor or classmates. Due to the interactive nature of this course, we strongly recommend students attend as many live sessions as possible. Within 72 hours after each session meets, students will receive access to a recording of the live session, which they can watch for up to two weeks after the course concludes. 

Instructors may use Google Classroom to communicate with students outside of class. While students aren’t required to use Google Classroom, instructors may use this platform to post resources, discussion questions, or assignments. This platform also offers a space for students to connect with one another about course material between sessions.

We provide closed captioning for all of our courses and can share transcripts upon request. Please reach out to us at [email protected] if you have any questions, requests, or accessibility needs.

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Computer Science > Computation and Language

Title: hipporag: neurobiologically inspired long-term memory for large language models.

Abstract: In order to thrive in hostile and ever-changing natural environments, mammalian brains evolved to store large amounts of knowledge about the world and continually integrate new information while avoiding catastrophic forgetting. Despite the impressive accomplishments, large language models (LLMs), even with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), still struggle to efficiently and effectively integrate a large amount of new experiences after pre-training. In this work, we introduce HippoRAG, a novel retrieval framework inspired by the hippocampal indexing theory of human long-term memory to enable deeper and more efficient knowledge integration over new experiences. HippoRAG synergistically orchestrates LLMs, knowledge graphs, and the Personalized PageRank algorithm to mimic the different roles of neocortex and hippocampus in human memory. We compare HippoRAG with existing RAG methods on multi-hop question answering and show that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods remarkably, by up to 20%. Single-step retrieval with HippoRAG achieves comparable or better performance than iterative retrieval like IRCoT while being 10-30 times cheaper and 6-13 times faster, and integrating HippoRAG into IRCoT brings further substantial gains. Finally, we show that our method can tackle new types of scenarios that are out of reach of existing methods. Code and data are available at this https URL .

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Samsung Workers Strike, the First in the Company’s History

The South Korean tech giant is at odds with some of its employees as it is trying to reassure investors that its memory chip business can meet demand.

By Jin Yu Young and Meaghan Tobin

Jin Yu Young reported from Seoul and Meaghan Tobin from Taipei, Taiwan.

For the first time, workers at Samsung, the conglomerate that dominates the South Korean economy, went on strike on Friday.

The action comes as Samsung Electronics fights to regain its edge in the business of making memory chips, a critical component in the advanced artificial intelligence systems that are reshaping longstanding rivalries among global technology companies.

Workers in Samsung’s chip division were expected to make up the majority of those who will not report to work on Friday for a planned one-day strike. Union representatives said that multiple rounds of negotiations over wage increases and bonuses had broken down.

“The company doesn’t value the union as a negotiating partner,” said Lee Hyun Kuk, the vice president of the Nationwide Samsung Electronics Union, the largest among five labor groups at the company. It says that it represents 28,000 members, about one-fifth of Samsung’s global work force, and that nearly 75 percent voted in favor of a strike in April.

Mr. Lee said that union workers received no bonuses last year, while some had gotten bonuses of as much as 30 percent of their salaries in the past. “It feels like we’ve taken a 30 percent pay cut,” he said. The average union worker earned about 80 million won last year, or around $60,000, before incentives, he said.

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From my Greek great-grandfather all the way to the cosmetic surgeon’s office.

The Sunday Essay  is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.

I n a lush waiting room in a renovated Remuera villa, I shift restlessly on the edge of my chair. I’m ridiculously early. I spent 20 minutes in the car outside and now I’m passing the remaining 15 staring at the ornate flowers on display. They’re flawless.  I wonder how often they are replaced.

I’ve been waiting six months for this appointment, on top of the 28 years it took to accumulate enough nerve to book a consultation for a nose job, but the final minutes seem to stretch into infinitely dividing segments. 

Five minutes after my appointment time, the surgeon appears from his office and ushers me in. He directs me to a seat adjacent to his desk and asks me what I am here for, like I might be at the post office or VTNZ — not in the office of a cosmetic and ENT surgeon.

Like asking a mechanic to take a look under the hood, I remove my mask and offer up my nose for his assessment. 

He enquires if it is mum’s or dad’s nose. “Mum’s,” I respond. I show him pictures of models on Pinterest and ask for “an Instagram-perfect nose”.  

For an hour he inspects, prods, measures and morphs my nose. The verdict: “A challenge.”

In a surgical plan, the surgeon explains how every aspect of my inheritance will be corrected: shave cartilage off the hump, fix the overgrown right septum to straighten and widen the nose, pull the tip up (moulded with the same cartilage) and finish with a fascia graft from behind the right ear. 

“We’ll take 12mm off, which is as much as you ever take off a hump,” the surgeon says, as casually as if he was sculpting clay.

$24,000 would afford me a three hour, 45 minute surgery. “That’s a lot of money,” comments a friend. I agree with them. But I tallied up that, over the years, I had spent more than that on makeup, hair, and clothes, all to divert attention from my nose. It was a black hole that inhaled my time and energy, and no retail therapy had made the void any less deep.

At 16, I came into the full expression of my phenotype and my nose became a focal point of my insecurities. I never looked at myself in photographs, but in a mirror and using the front-facing camera on my phone I could adjust the boundaries to reflect a flattering image, one where the light made my nose appear straight and the hump a mere curve. A picture that captured me as I saw myself, not as I really was. 

On the day of the surgery, a nurse takes me through pre-op. One look at my nose and she declares, “You’re going to be so happy with the results.” She hands me paracetamol and nose spray.

“Is it a Roman nose?” she asks me. 

I shake my head. “Greek,” I reply. 

You can find my great grandfather, John Paul Galatti , on the Agelastos family genealogy website. Attached to a record of birth and death is his photograph – broad forehead, close-set eyes and a large aquiline nose that draws the eye from hump to downturned tip as it slants to the right. The picture itself is lemon-tinged with bleached corners, but the nose’s curvature doesn’t come out in the wash.

The origin of the nose was under ethnic speculation for a long time. My grandfather changed his last name after the second world war and died soon after I was born, but in a photo of my christening I can see the family resemblance in him and my mother as they stand on the church steps, my mother holding me in her arms. Despite replacing Galatti with the inoffensive, British “Allison”, the nose remained across three generations. Being christened with my mother’s maiden name as my middle name was just another iteration of mismatched name and nose.

 According to my mother, her father changed his last name after World War II. Stationed in Italy in 1948, a superior officer strongly suggested that a name like “Galatti” was not suitable for an English captain. As a child I was drawn to the emphatic and unique sound “Galatti”. Hearing what could have been my middle name, had it not been surrendered for the mundane “Allison”, provoked an unsteady feeling, a small grief for something I never had.

O n surgery day, I sit fidgeting in the pre-op room about as bare as the day I was christened, clad only in a surgical gown and my underwear, ready to rid myself of my inheritance.  Finally, I am led towards the operating room. Without my glasses, I stumble blind amongst smears of blue and the scent of antiseptic. I climb onto the surgical table and the nurse tucks me into white hospital sheets so stiff and sterile they crunch like a bowl of cereal. 

“Are you excited?” the anesthesiologist asks me, pulling out my arms from the covers and rubbing the crook of my elbow with sterile wipes. “I am,” I say, but I am also terrified of going under. Maybe it’s just to soothe any pre-op jitters, but no one says quite what I’m expecting them to, which is something like, “But I don’t notice your nose”, or, “You don’t need a nose job”. Comments suggesting that my relationship with my nose is a failure in self acceptance. 

I look like my mum, is that such a bad thing? 

Yet, my brother was spared the affliction and my aunt had a rhinoplasty in the 90s, before you could window shop noses on social media. 

A cool liquid is piped into my vein and it becomes very, very easy to submerge into the bed. As if there is nothing between the table top and the blanket, as if I simply don’t exist for the next three hours and 45 minutes. 

I enjoy the existential break. 

I wake up with foamy limbs and a numb nose, back in my T-shirt and leggings and not knowing how I got dressed. It takes a minute for my memories to return from the chronological skip in time. The nurse is here again, giving me cheese sandwiches and telling me how beautiful the result is. I brush my fingers over my nose, imagining a straight bridge, but feeling the hard cast in its place. The nurse hands me a mirror and there is the gauze equivalent of two bloody tampons up my nose. 

At home, my partner feeds me painkillers and tucks me into bed propped upright. I am sore, cramping and euphoric, on a comedown from the anaesthesia and morphine. Giddy, I send my closest friends pictures of my current state; black eyes, nose tampons and all. I wake up constantly in the night, unable to breath through my nose. My mouth and tongue are painfully arid.

In the morning, I go back to the clinic to have my gauze removed. My right nostril – the problem one – spurts blood all over my T-shirt. For 10 minutes, I soak gauze until it’s dense with red. Finally the blood dries up and I can take a light-headed breath through both nostrils. I’m again given a mirror, and even with the white fibrecast splint around my nose, I can see the tip is upturned and the hump is gone. 

A week later, I have my cast removed. On the reveal, I look at my reflection and I am underwhelmed. After a week of settling in, instead of this miraculous transformation, there’s just my nose, there, looking as it always should have. 

At home, I practise modelling my new face. I cover up the remaining bruising with a thick slather of concealer to preview the final transformation. Using the front-facing camera, I no longer have to angle myself to make my nose appear straight. It is linear in all planes now. 

D uring my first week back at work, I expect to be called out, uncovered, revealed, but no one says a thing. My own parents have no idea until I confess to them my secret; only then do they notice my profile no longer matches my mother’s.  “It looks nice, but I can’t actually remember what your nose looked like,” says one friend. Then I pull out my phone and show them a slideshow of my transformation. There is a hushed “Oh” when they compare my before with my after, but I realise no one associated me with having a big nose. To them, I was just Hannah: not in parts, but a complete picture. 

I return a year later for my final post-op check up. The surgeon once again leads me into his office, saying, “I was just looking at your pre-op pictures – I remember this nose, it was a challenge!”

The dialogue between the surgeon and me is polite but superficial as he looks up my nostrils for the final time. “What an improvement it is! Doesn’t it look better now?” he says, checking behind my ear. What I hear is how awful an affliction my previous nose must have been.

The question he should have asked was, “Do you feel better now?” Because I do. With no trunk space to store my insecurity, there’s been room to grow and to shape a much richer, fuller life for myself.

The surgeon asks if he’s able to use my photos for his website and Instagram and I give him permission. I’m not ashamed about the before or the after, but as I get my final set of photos taken I think about an alternate family history. One where my nose had a connection to culture and identity and was not so readily traded in for a more conventionally aesthetic model. 

I want to yell at my surgeons to stop treating big noses as some kind of genealogical failing. 

My own nose was a failing of the paternal line: my grandfather was born in Calcutta in 1924 after a shotgun marriage between his Greek American father and English expatriate mother. Shortly after, his father abandoned his wife and son, leaving them to re-immigrate to England a few years later. 

My grandfather never saw his father again, so changing his last name during the war to gain his captain’s commission was inconsequential.  

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My own nose put up a fight. When swelling went down a wisp of the bump still remained — 12mm was not enough to completely erase my ancestry, but these days I can appreciate the parts of me that aren’t so easily cut out. 

My mother is the final keeper of the nose now. One day I may have a baby girl and she may resemble her grandmother more than her own mother. One day she too may make a choice to change the expression of the genes she inherited.

That’s the wonder of the things we inherit: sometimes they define who we are, sometimes they are ours to redefine.

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History and Memory, Oxford Handbook of Historical Writing, 2011

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, black twitter: a people's history.

Black people are the architects of American culture. The hip verbiage many young people speak, the music they consume, and even the most influential art among what could be called hipsters are derived from Black people. Our distinctive perception of the world has become a pavement for creativity, and social media is no exception. During the exodus of Twitter—or X if you're lame or a bot—the influential grip they had became so significant that it's warranted a 3-part Hulu docu-series on the subject. For an influential sub-culture, Prentice Penny's "Black Twitter: A People's History" is a trip down memory lane, highlighting the pivotal moments in Black culture, politically and artistically, and how our diverse voices made the app better and voices heard, but it stumbles by excluding so many people who made this corner of the internet so influential.

Based on Jason Parham's 2021 Wired piece "A People's History of Black Twitter," the three-part doc chronicles different avenues in which Black people were the creators that gave Twitter its wings. In the early 2010s, Black people preferred the site over its main competitor, Facebook. Once a few hashtags such as '#twitterafterdark' and '#youknowyoureblackwhen' started flying, it became a communal beacon for Black users, inviting them to show up and add their voices to the conversation. This was the birth of what we now know as 'Black Twitter, a unique community within the larger Twitter platform where Black users share their experiences, perspectives, and humor, specific hashtags connecting and amplifying their voices. It's a space where everyone's voice matters, and it's had a significant impact on shaping cultural and political discourse on social media.

The three episodes revolve around Black Twitter's digital origin, the social changes it influenced by its impact, and the circling down the drain during the Trump era through the pandemic and up to Elon Musk's current reign. Of its three near-hour chapters, the first plays like a joyous celebration as an ensemble of journalists, hashtag originators, comedians, and scholars discuss many joke exchanges originating from the latest dramatic moments in “ Scandal ” or “Game of Thrones.” Panelists recount iconic incidents that went viral via the bird app from the Rihanna/Ciara beef of 2011 that had everyone gagged to the infamous Zola Twitter thread , the first instance a Twitter tale became a full-fledged movie (" Zola "), showcasing Black Twitter's cultural impact.

As it progresses, the series doubles down on the discussion of the advancement of technology and how the platform became a tool for Black voices to be heard nationwide, such as April Reign's #oscarsowhite campaign in 2014, which commented on the constant omission of Black people in Oscar acting categories, lending to the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences diversifying their membership pool. Or with Alicia Garza's #BlackLivesMatter campaign that started in response to the tragic murder of Trayvon Martin.

With "Black Twitter: A People's History," Penny assembles numerous journalists, scholars, comedians, and internet personalities, including W. Kamau Bell , Amanda Seales, Jemele Hill, Roxane Gay, Sam Jay , Brad Jenkins, Alicia Garza , and April Reign. Given the celebration of inclusivity, its aura is disappointingly exclusive as most of the subjects' opinions are high-profile people with blue checks. Each panelist's profile appears to bear that verification symbol at the end of their name; while today it carries little weight, it'd be preferable to consult other influential users with less problematic backgrounds than, say, the always controversial Amanda Seales . 

It’s uncomfortable that people like Seales and Kristy Tillman get the spotlight to cover misogynoir when they were publicly slammed for defending terrible men  as recently as last weekend , when Tillman defended journalist DJ Vlad, who called for a Black Princeton professor’s job. Why are these the people who get to have these discussions and not people outside of the casting director’s bizarre definition of Black Twitter royalty? 

If the viewer is a young Black kid who didn’t know of Twitter until its current X-era, the doc functions as a surface-level crash course. But the movement deserves more than a superficial appreciation. For anyone who was there, it feels ultimately thankless due to our shared experiences down paths we don't necessarily want to reminisce on. And it breezes through topics ripe for deeper conversation. 

Whole series screened for review. On Hulu now.

Rendy Jones

Rendy Jones (they/he) is a film and television journalist born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. They are the owner of self-published independent outlet Rendy Reviews, a member of the Critics' Choice Association, GALECA, and a part time stand-up comedian.

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Journal of Materials Chemistry A

High-strength thermochromic and mechanochromic liquid-crystal elastomers with responsive shape memory and dynamic adhesion.

Soft materials with stimuli-responsive functionalities have crucial applications in advanced sensors and soft robotics. However, integrating multiple response functions into a single soft material poses significant challenges. In addition, striking a good tradeoff between achieving high mechanical performance and maintaining a highly sensitive response to external stimuli is crucial. Here, we present the design of cholesteric liquid crystal elastomers (CLCEs) characterized by high mechanical performance and a diverse array of responsive functionalities including thermochromic, mechanochromic, shape memory, and dynamic adhesion behaviors. The strategy employed involves the creation of loosely cross-linked CLCEs with densely packed nematic and chiral LC mesogens suspended on the side chain, ensuring significant tunability in the ordering/orientation, coupled with notable energy dissipation across the nematic-isotropic transition. We systematically investigated the impact of the crosslinking density and chiral content on the thermal, photonic, and mechanical behaviors. The CLCE films exhibit superior mechanical properties (b 19.7 MPa and b 300%), sensitive thermochromic and mechanochromic behaviors in the full visible light wavelength range, characteristic triple shape memory effects, and universal temperature-responsive adhesion. This study represents an effort toward developing mechanically robust CLCEs that integrate multiple stimuli-responsive functionalities, providing the foundation for advanced applications in anti-counterfeiting, optical sensors, and biomorphic robotics.

• This article is part of the themed collection: Journal of Materials Chemistry A HOT Papers

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L. Li, X. Yin, Y. Zhao, L. Shi, K. Yang and Y. Wang, J. Mater. Chem. A , 2024, Accepted Manuscript , DOI: 10.1039/D4TA02010C

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How to Create a Photo Essay

The photographic essay, also called a photo essay or photo story, is a powerful way for photographers to tell a story with their images. If you are interested in creating your own photo essay, this article will guide you through the whole process, from finding a story to shoot to the basics of crafting your first visual narrative.

Table of Contents

What is a photo essay.

A photo essay tells a story visually. Just like the kind you read, the photo essay offers a complete rendering of a subject or situation using a series of carefully crafted and curated images. Photo stories have a theme, and each image backs up that overarching theme which is defined in the photo essay’s title and is sometimes supported with text.

From documentary to narrative to essay, photo stories are designed to move their audience, to inspire a certain action, awareness, or emotion. Photo stories are not just a collection of cool photos. They must use their visual power to capture viewers’ attention and remain unforgettable.

History of the Photo Story

In the “old days”, that is, before 1948, magazines ran photo stories very different from what we know today. They were staged, preconceived by an editor, not a truthful observation of life. Along came a photographer named W. Eugene Smith, who worked for Life magazine.

Deciding to follow a rural doctor for six weeks, he gathered material for a photo essay that really showed what it was like to be in that doctor’s shoes, always on the go to help his scattered patients. Smith’s piece, “ Country Doctor ,” shook other photographers out of their scripted stupor and revolutionized the way photographers report what they see.

From then on, photojournalism gained life and an audience through the lenses of legends like Robert Capa, Dorothea Lange, David “Chim” Seymour, Gordon Parks, Werner Bischof, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. The Vietnam War provided many examples for photo stories as represented by Philip Jones Griffiths, Catherine Leroy, and many more.

More recently, photo stories have found a sturdy home online thanks to the ease of publishing a series of photos digitally versus in print. Lynsey Addario, Peter Essick, and Adam Ferguson represent a few of the photographers pushing visual storytelling today.

Ways to Find Photo Stories and Themes

Photo stories exist all around, right in the midst of everyday life and in the fray of current events. A good place to begin developing a photo essay is by choosing a general theme.

Topics that Interest You

The best expression comes from the heart, so why not choose a topic that interests you. Maybe it’s a social issue, an environmental one, or just something you’re curious about. Find what moves you and share that with the world.

Personal Experiences

The more you’ve lived, the more you have to tell. This doesn’t necessarily mean age, it can also refer to experiences, big and small. If you know a subject better than most, like what it’s like to recover from a car crash, you’re an expert on the matter and therefore you have a story to tell. Also, consider the things you read and see or watch, like news or history, and incorporate that into your search for a story.

Problem/Solution

Problems abound in the world. But so do solutions. Photojournalists can present either, or both. Have a look at something that’s wrong in society and show why it’s a problem. Or find a problem that’s been resolved and show the struggle it took to get there. Even better, take your time shooting your story — sometimes it can take years — and document how a wrong is righted.

Day-in-the-Life

One of the most popular formats, day-in-the-life photo stories present microcosms of life that relate to the bigger picture. In a similar vein, behind-the-scenes photo stories show viewers what life is really like for others, especially in situations that are difficult or impossible to access. Events represent another simple yet powerful theme for documenting and storytelling with a camera.

Types of Photo Stories

Most photo stories concern people. If it’s about something like the environment, for example, the photo story can showcase the people involved. In either case, the impactful photo story will present the challenges and dilemmas of the human condition, viscerally.

There are three general types of photo stories.

Narrative Story

Narrative deals with complications and their resolution, problems, and solutions. If there appears to be no resolution, at least the struggle to find one can provide material for a photo essay. Some sort of narrative thread must push the story from beginning to middle to end, just like what you see in a good movie.

A good story also requires action, which in this case must be visual. Good stories are page-turners, whether they’re a Kerouac tale or a series of photos demonstrating the difficulties of single parenting. Adventure stories are one good example of photographic narrative storytelling.

The term “photo story” is generally used interchangeably with “photo essay”, but some photographers hold that there are subtle differences between the two. The essay type of photo story implies opinion, they argue. Essays make a point. They are the opposite of facts-only news. A photo story essay makes a case for something, like showing the danger and consequences of illegal fireworks or advocating for the preservation of a forest.

Documentary

On the other hand, documentaries lack opinion. Their purpose is to inform without adding judgment. Documentaries present the facts and let viewers decide. They illustrate something that’s occurring but they don’t always include a narrative story or an opinionated approach. Historical places, current events, and unique lifestyles always make for good documentary photo stories.

How to Craft a Photo Essay

Several elements come into play when putting together a photo essay. Once you’ve found a theme, it’s time to give your project a name. While out shooting, jot down titles that come to mind. Consider the title a magazine headline that explains in few words what the whole story is about.

Choose your photos according to whether or not they relate to and support the photo essay’s title. Reject those photos that don’t. If your collection seems to suggest a different angle, a different title, don’t be afraid to rename it. Sometimes stories develop organically. But if your title can’t assemble and define your selection of photos, maybe it’s too vague. Don’t rush it. Identify the theme, take the photos and the photo essay will take shape.

Certain techniques help tell the photo essay.

A photo essay is composed of a diversity of views, angles, and focal lengths. While masters like Henri Cartier-Bresson could capture a photo essay with a single prime lens, in his case a 50mm, the rest of us are wise to rely on multiple focal lengths. Just like what we see in the movies, a story is told with wide shots that set the scene, medium shots that tell the story, and close-ups that reveal character and emotion.

Unique angles make viewers curious and interested, and they break the monotony of standard photography. Consider working black-and-white into your photo essay. The photo essay lends itself well to reportage exclusively in monochrome, as the legends have demonstrated since W. Eugene Smith.

Visual Consistency

The idea of a photo essay is to create a whole, not a bunch of random parts. Think gestalt. The images must interact with each other. Repetition helps achieve this end. Recurring themes, moods, styles, people, things, and perspectives work to unify a project even if the photos tell different parts of the story.

Text can augment the impact of a photo essay. A photo may be worth a thousand words, but it doesn’t always replace them. Captions can be as short as a complete sentence, as long as a paragraph, or longer. Make sure to take notes in case you want to add captions. Some photo stories, however, function just fine without words.

Tell a Story as a Photographer

Few genres of photography have moved people like the photo essay. Since its inception, the art of visual storytelling has captivated audiences. Photo stories show viewers things they had never seen, have moved masses to action, and have inspired video documentaries. Today, photo stories retain their power and place, in part thanks to the internet. Every photographer should experiment with a photo essay or two.

The method of crafting a photo essay is simple yet complicated, just like life. Careful attention must be paid to the selection of images, the choice of title, and the techniques used in shooting. But follow these guidelines and the photo stories will come. Seek issues and experiences that inspire you and go photograph them with the intention of telling a complete story. The viewing world will thank you.

Image credits: Header photo shows the May 13, 1957 story in LIFE magazine titled, “ The Tough Miracle Man of Vietnam .” Stock photos from Depositphotos