ABSTRACT
One of the central tasks of the nation-state in war commemoration is to maintain or secure the unity of the ‘imagined (national) community’, and its associated narratives and rituals, in the face of sometimes acute social divisions. In twentieth-century Western Europe, this has often proved a difficult task, given shifts in national borders, class conflicts within societies, ideological allegiances cutting across nationality, occupation by foreign powers and separation from colonized territories. The recent publication of significant studies dealing with the politics of war memory and commemoration in Britain (Gregory, King), France (Farmer) and Italy (Portelli), together with contributions to the synoptic collection edited by Evans and Lunn, can, when brought together, reveal much about these tensions and the means by which they can be explored.
