Edited volume “On Dealing with the German Colonial Past”

Here is a first glimpse of the blurb:

Restitution debates, street renamings, toppled monuments – engagement with Germany’s colonial legacy has been intensively pursued in recent years. Yet to understand these most recent conflicts, it is not enough to look at the colonial era alone. The contributors to this volume therefore undertake a decisive shift in perspective: rather than focusing solely on the period of high imperialism, they place the post-history of colonialism since 1945 and contemporary approaches to the colonial past at the centre. The lines of conflict that emerge reveal how interpretations of the German colonial past have been contested—and continue to be contested—in the press, in school textbooks, and in cultural institutions. It becomes clear that public remembrance did not follow a linear trajectory, but instead passed through phases of justification, forgetting, and critical engagement. By linking current debates in Namibia and Tanzania with local and regional historical analyses from Germany, the volume produces a new topography of the historical culture of German colonialism. With contributions from Gabriele Metzler, Henning Melber, Fabian Fechner, Barbara Schneider and others.