Dark Pasts

Changing the State's Story in Turkey and Japan

Jennifer M. Dixon (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

276 Seiten

2018
Cornell University Press (Verlag)
978-1-5017-3024-5 (ISBN)

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Over the past two decades, many states have heard demands that they recognize and apologize for historic wrongs. Such calls have not elicited uniform or predictable responses. While some states have apologized for past crimes, others continue to silence, deny, and relativize dark pasts. What explains the tremendous variation in how states deal...

In Dark Pasts, Jennifer M. Dixon asks why states deny past atrocities, and when and why they change the stories they tell about them.

In recent decades, states have been called on to acknowledge and apologize for historic wrongs. Some have apologized, while others have silenced, denied, and relativized past crimes. Dark Pasts unravels the complex and fraught processes through which state narratives of past atrocities are constructed, contested, and defended. Focusing on Turkey's narrative of the Armenian Genocide and Japan's narrative of the Nanjing Massacre, Dixon shows that international pressures increase the likelihood of change in states' narratives of their own dark pasts, even as domestic considerations determine their content.

Combining historical richness and analytical rigor, Dark Pasts is a revelatory study of the persistent presence of the past and the politics that shape narratives of state wrongdoing.

Jennifer M. Dixon is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Villanova University. She has published articles in Perspectives on Politics, South European Society and Politics, and International Journal of Middle East Studies.

List of Acronyms

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Coming to Terms with Dark Pasts?

1. Changing the State's Story

2. The Armenian Genocide and Its Aftermath

3. From Silencing to Mythmaking (1950–early 1990s)

4. Playing Hardball (1994–2008)

5. The Nanjing Massacre and the Second Sino-Japanese War

6. "History Issues" in the Postwar Period (1952–1989)

7. Unfreezing the Question of History (1990–2008)

Conclusion: The Politics of Dark Pasts

Appendix 1: Research Conducted

Appendix 2: Turkish High School History Textbooks Analyzed

Notes

References

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	05.10.2018
Zusatzinfo	3 Line drawings, black and white; 1 Charts
Verlagsort	Ithaca
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	907 g
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► Allgemeines / Lexika
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Europäische / Internationale Politik
ISBN-10	1-5017-3024-X / 150173024X
ISBN-13	978-1-5017-3024-5 / 9781501730245
Zustand	Neuware