The focus on the relationship between memory and history, the construction of collective memory, and the formation of national narratives about the past have played a central role in European historiography since the 1980s. The issue of how history is remembered has been given an added impetus by the volatile political developments since 1989, notably the collapse of communism and the centrality of the Holocaust in post-1989 historical discourse.

A European Memory? provides a stimulating overview of these discussions. The book emerged out of a series of seminars held at the European University Institute in Florence in 2007, organized in response to the resounding defeat of the European constitution by French and Dutch voters in 1995. The rejection reflected, the editors argue, the problematic historical grounding of the proposed European Constitution, which was one-sided and undifferentiated in its historical narrative: “The Enlightenment heritage and the tradition of a particularly social Europe were remarked upon, yet, in contrast, darker elements of Europe's past were absent.” The editors’ stated aim is to contribute to the project of a critical history of the European past “one that acknowledges the conflicts, contentions, complexity and ambiguity of Europe's pasts and thereby recognizes the fragility of its future” (p. 1).

The possibility of a common European constitution is predicated on the consciousness of a shared European history. As the essays effectively demonstrate, the “shared past” is largely a project of elites and is by no means self-evident to the Europeans themselves. In the first, theoretical part of the book, essays by Jan-Werner Müller, Klas-Göran Karlsson, Wolfgang Kaschuba, and Stefan Troebst reflect on the complex relations between collective memory and history and the highly problematic issue of the emergence of the project of a unified European memory. While expressing doubts about the possibility of a “oneness of memory” that is largely the product of suppression of memories that “just do not fit,” Jans-Werner Müller nevertheless argues that the attempt to develop a “common European memory” could lead to a “process of mutual opening and civilized confrontation of collective memories under the guidance of something like a Rawlsian ‘public reason’” (p. 26). Despite the perhaps artificial nature of a “collective” European historical narrative, such a common memory could be “subject to shared public reason, historical scrutiny and moral argument in a way that individual memories are not” (p. 29). At the same time, he warns against the avoidance of painful confrontation and the “temptation of consolation.” Karlsson points out the ways in which memory of the Holocaust, in particular, has become the “basic value system” and a “European canon” for the European Union, while pointing out the official neglect of the legacy of Stalinism, a “hot” memory that separates rather than unifies (p. 41). Stefan Troebst, likewise, reflects on the ongoing relevance of Oscar Halecki's regional division of European histories; thus, the anniversary of the end of World War II has entirely different associations for Russians, east-central Europeans, Germans, and west Europeans. The fundamental “memory conflict” dividing Europe, he argues, is the memory of the Yalta Conference, which has enormous resonance in Poland and the Baltic states, in contrast to the west European and German focus on the Holocaust as a “negative ‘EU founding myth.’” Troebst's essay, highlighting the deep divisions that distinguish eastern and western Europe, suggests some of the considerable obstacles limiting a “common” European memory. In their essays, Heidemarie Uhl, Frederick Whitling, and James Kaye reflect on “the nature of public remembrance,” the differences between memory and history, and the fluid and constructed qualities of collective memories. Kaye's essay stands out in its focus on the role of the image in the production of memory.

The second empirical part of the book provides perspectives on different parts of Europe and how various national narratives concerning World War II, the Holocaust, the history of communism, and the legacy of colonialism relate to the possibility of a common European memory. The essays cover quite a bit of material, and this review can only refer to some of the issues that they raise. Pieces by Stefan Berger and Heike Karge provide helpful overviews of the variety of national narratives in western Europe (Berger), eastern Europe (Karge), and Scandinavia (Maier) concerning World War II. Cecilie Felicia Stokholm Banke traces the role of the Holocaust as a founding memory of the European Union and the various phases of Holocaust memory in Europe, culminating in its “dominating role in the political culture . . . after 1989” as a “historical reference against which European societies must constantly guard” (p. 174). The cumulative message of the essays suggests, however, that memories remain determined by national/regional context. In her interesting essay on the reception of the film Europa, Europa, Pakier notes the overwhelmingly negative response to the film in Germany, perhaps as it downplays the internal identification of the young Salomon Perel with Nazism. In Poland, by contrast, the film was positively received, as Poles viewed Perel's experiences under both Stalin and Hitler as reflecting Polish victimization under the two dictatorships. In both cases, the tendency was “to read Perel's biography as a meaningful parallel of their own national histories.”

Just as the Holocaust is remembered differently in different contexts, so, too, is the memory of communist dictatorship. Arfon Rees describes the instrumentalization of history by the Russian state under Vladmir Putin, the war being viewed as an “antifascist crusade” in which Russians rather than other national groups (notably, the Jews) are viewed as the primary victims. By contrast, the Hungarian “House of Terror” and the Sighet Memorial Museum in Romania emphasize the “brutality and barbarity of communist rule” (p. 236), representing the nation as a passive victim and ignoring issues of complicity and collaboration. Significant differences of interpretation occur in the essays themselves. Whereas Kevin Morgan argues that the memory of communism has been instrumentalized by the political Right in western Europe to attack progressive politics more generally, Konrad Jarausch suggests that leftist intellectuals in the west have been “reluctant to confront the crimes committed by a progressive ideology, based on values of the Enlightenment” (p. 316). There seems to be a general consensus in this volume, however, concerning the difficulty of addressing the history of European colonialism. Jan Jensen, in his discussion of the Algerian War and France, highlights the controversy over the role of torture during the Algerian war and the debates about the “civilizing mission” of colonialism. Both Morgan and Jensen argue that with the colonialist legacy, a “dark side” of the European past has not, in contrast to the Holocaust, been adequately incorporated into the discussions about a common European past.

Konrad Jarausch provides a helpful afterword in which he summarizes the main themes of the book, no small task, given the range of issues that the book addresses. He warns against a conception of European history that is overwhelmingly dominated by the fear of the “repetition of prior problems” rather than a “shared vision for the future” (p. 314). Jarausch also questions the project of a collective “Euro-memory mandated from above,” suggesting that Europeans ought to consider reconciling their “clashing recollections through a transnational discussion from below” (p. 318).

The book provides an extremely useful guide through the labyrinth of issues concerning Europeans and the politics of remembrance. The editors deserve great credit for taking on and attempting to represent the multiplicity of debates that characterize contemporary European visions of and debates about the past.