ABSTRACT
The common history textbook commissions involved transnational academic historical dialogues that bridged divided history policies and addressed differences in political discourses and societal confrontation with a burdened national past. Through this historical dialogue, the common history projects create a discursive space of redressing past political violence and atrocities and challenging existing meanings of intergroup relations and identity. The preceding history dialogue that produces a historic narrative that all sides agree on is a procedure that involves rigorous historical research, factual verification, and engagement of the different sides in the conflict. However, this sensitive and complex process has not received sufficient scholarly attention. The chapter concentrates on the production of common history textbooks within three multi-country projects – the Franco-German project, the Joint History project in Balkans, and the North-East Asia project. It explores how historical dialogue bridges over contentious competing historical accounts and disseminates them in a society. While some projects have resulted in common narratives, others were able to present alternative narratives through agonistic dialogue as an essential approach to the peacebuilding and prevention of mass atrocities. The chapter investigates how three functions of historic narratives – connotative, evaluative, and normative – are fulfilled by these three projects, contributing to the primary prevention strategies in three regions.
