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"For anyone interested in transitional justice, national reconstruction
after mass violence, or multicultural politics, Teaching the Violent Past is
a source of insight and wisdom, grounded in compelling case studies of the struggles
over teaching history in Germany, Japan, Canada, Spain, Northern Ireland, and
Guatemala. It includes probing chapters examining ongoing debates over how Russia,
North and South Korea, India and Pakistan should teach their young about the
past so that neither national pride nor psychic wounds ends up fueling new violent
conflicts. This book offers vital examples of efforts to engage students in
critical confrontations with the complexity of the past."
—MARTHA MINOW
Harvard Law School
"Can high school history texts 'facilitate nonviolent coexistence among people
divided by the memory of pain and death'? These case studies from ten countries
are rich in hopeful, cautious, mixed answers. High school history teachers should
take courage from this book, for theirs is a mission not often publicly celebrated:
their part in the healing of the wounds in our body politic. No country should
boast that it has no such wounds."
—DONALD W. SHRIVER, Jr.
President Emeritus, Union Theological Seminary
"Cole provides an indispensable set of readings for anyone interested
in learning how teaching history in the schools relates to healing after violence.
Through their gathered chapters, the authors show how any nation's future relates
to what the next generation learns about its past. Cole's collection offers
a powerful synthesis of multi-national points of view, which, taken together,
show how schools can reshape collective national identities and influence reconciliation."
—SARAH WARSHAUER FREEDMAN
University of California at Berkeley
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