Lecture by Henry Rousso: Can Historical Memory Prevent Against a Return to Mass Violence?

In his newest book, Henry Rousso, one of the first historians to have worked on the memory of collective historical traumas, examines recent developments in the uses and politics of memory in France, and shows how these phenomena must also be considered within a broader European and global context. The stakes are high: the considerable efforts made by modern societies to preserve the memory of historical traumas has not inoculated them against a tragic return to mass violence.
Henry Rousso is Director of Research at the CNRS (Institut d'histoire du temps présent) and teaches in France and the United States. His books include The Vichy Syndrome; The Haunting Past: History, Memory, and Justice in Contemporary France; and The Latest Catastrophe: History, the Present, the Contemporary.

Event co-sponsored by the Alliance Program and the Department of History and the University Seminar on Cultural Memory