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This book explores national attitudes to remembering colonialism in Britain and France. By comparing these two former colonial powers, the author tells two distinct stories about coming to terms with the legacies of colonialism, the role of silence and the breaking thereof. Examining memory through the stories of people who incited public conversation on colonialism: activists; politicians; journalists; and professional historians, this book argues that these actors mobilised the colonial past to make sense of national identity, race and belonging in the present. In focusing on memory as an ongoing, politicised public debate, the book examines the afterlife of colonial history as an element of political and social discourse that depends on actors' goals and priorities. A thought-provoking and powerful read that explores the divisive legacies of colonialism through oral history, this book will appeal to those researching imperialism, collective memory and cultural identity.
List of contents
Introduction.- SECTION I: FRANCE.- Chapter 1: Tracing Postcolonial Silence in France.- Chapter 2: A Silence that Never Was? Appropriating the Algerian War of Independence.- Chapter 3: Devoir de mémoire on the Road to 2005:The Republic and the Emergence of Memory Activism.- Chapter 4: Memory as Republican Critique: Race and Anti-Racism after 2005.- Chapter 5: Memory as a Marker of Political Affiliation.- SECTION II: BRITAIN.- Chapter 6: Silence I: Why Look Back in Anger? De-Prioritising Empire.- Chapter 7: Silence II: Convivial Multiculturalism's Tyranny of the Present.- Chapter 8: Breaking the Chains? Slavery in Britain's Public Space.- Chapter 9: New Contestations of Race and Empire.- Chapter 10: The Tale of the Imperial Balance Sheet.- Conclusion.
About the author
Itay Lotem is a Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Westminster, UK. He has published in academic journals like
Modern and Contemporary France, French Politics, Culture and Society and
French History in addition to appearances in the media
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Report
"Itay Lotem's rich and conceptually informed study ... in which colonialism and slavery have been remembered publicly in France and Great Britain is an important contribution to a better understanding of the general patterns and particularities of the surge in colonial memories across Europe. ... By the sheer wealth of information and insights he provides, Lotem proves himself to be an invaluable guide ... that will continue to demand the attention of societies and states in Europe and beyond." (Jan C. Jansen, German Historical Institute London Bulletin, Vol. 45 (2), November, 2023)
"The book is engagingly written, and is notable in its ambition, scope, and breadth of research undertaken. ... The Memory of Colonialism makes several important and timely interventions in the study of historical remembrance and postcolonial identity. ... His book will surely become a cornerstone of the growing scholarship on colonial memory, and deserves to be widely read." (M. Kathryn Edwards, Social History, April 7, 2022)
