ABSTRACT
Clarifying the Past provides a comprehensive analysis of state-sponsored historical commissions operating in conflicted and divided societies, developing a theoretical and methodological framework within the historical dialogue paradigm, key to understanding the work of such commissions.
The theoretical and methodological framework is complemented with an extensive empirical analysis of 27 historical commissions that operated in different social and political contexts from 1990s to the present. The detailed examination of these cases gives a broad perspective into the potential capacities of historical commissions in different settings. Although only sampling the most recent cases, this volume shows how the steady increase of the number of historical commissions indicates that we are not dealing with a marginal phenomenon. The increased recognition of the potential of historical commissions to address the legacies of contested pasts and potential introduction of such commissions to transitional justice, makes this book highly relevant.
This book has been written with the objective of deepening and broadening the existing knowledge on state-sponsored historical commissions. Its intended audiences are scholars and practitioners in the fields of historical theory, public history, and historical dialogue, transitional justice, peace and conflict studies.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |9 pages
Introduction
part I|56 pages
Understanding Historical Commissions
chapter 1|17 pages
The Politics of the Past and the Production of Historical Knowledge
chapter 3|10 pages
Institutionalisation of Historical Commissions
chapter 4|12 pages
Historical Commissions' Methods of Practice
part II|149 pages
Mapping Historical Commissions
chapter 5|6 pages
Introduction to the Empirical Analysis
chapter 6|26 pages
Diplomatic Historical Commissions
chapter 7.1|35 pages
Post-Totalitarian Historical Commissions: Post-Nazism Historical Commissions
chapter 7.2|18 pages
Post-Totalitarian Historical Commissions: Post-Soviet Historical Commissions
chapter 8|22 pages
(Post)conflict Historical Commissions
chapter 9|24 pages
Post-Colonial Historical Commissions
part |17 pages
Epilogue