"No scholarly consensus exists about how the terms 'memory' and 'collective memory' may most fruitfully inform historical study. Hence there is still much room for reflection and clarification in this branch of cultural history. How war has been remembered collectively is the central question in this volume. War in the twentieth century is a vivid and traumatic phenomenon which has left behind it survivors who engage time and time again in acts of remembrance. Thus this volume, which contains essays by outstanding scholars of twentieth-century history, focuses on the issues raised by the shadow of war in this century. Drawing on material from countries in Europe, and from Israel and the United States, the contributors have adopted a 'social agency' approach which highlights the behaviour, not of whole societies or of ruling groups alone, but of the individuals who do the work of remembrance, who feel they have a duty to remember, and who want to preserve a piece of the past. More specifically, the traumatic collective memory resulting from the horors of the First World War, the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, and the Algerian War is examined through studies of public forms of remembrance, such as museums and exhibitions, literature and film, thus demonstrating that a popular kind of collective memory is still very much alive." (Publisher)