This open access book provides a concise introduction to a critical development in memory studies. A global memory formation has emerged since the 1990s, in which memories of traumatic histories in different parts of the world, often articulated in the terms established by Holocaust memory, have become entangled, reconciled, contested, conflicted and negotiated across borders. As historical actors and events across time and space become connected in new ways, new grounds for contest and competition arise; claims to the past that appeared de-territorialized in the global memory formation become re-territorialized - deployed in the service of nationalist projects. This poses challenges to scholarship but also to practice: How can we ensure that shared or comparable memories of past injustice continue to be grounds for solidarity between different memory communities? In chapters focusing on Europe, East Asia and Africa, five scholars respond to these challenges from a range of disciplinary perspectives in the humanities.

South Korean historian Jie-Hyun Lim, raised under an anticommunist dictatorship, turned to Marxian thought to explain his country's development, even as he came to struggle with its Eurocentrism. As a transnational scholar working in postcommunist Poland, Lim recognized striking similarities between Korean and Polish history and politics. One realization stood out: Both Korea and Poland-at once the "West" for Asia yet "Eastern" Europe-had been assigned the role of "East." This book explores entangled Easts to reconsider global history from the margins. Examining the politics of history and memory, Lim reveals the affinities linking Eastern Europe and East Asia. He draws out commonalities in their experiences of modernity, in their transitions from dictatorship to democracy, and in the shaping of collective memory. Ranging across Poland, Germany, Israel, Japan, and Korea, Lim traces the global history of how notions of victimhood have become central to nationalism. He criticizes mass dictatorships of right and left in the Global Easts, considering Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt's notion of sovereign dictatorship and the concept of decisionist democracy. Lim argues that nationalism is inherently transnational, critiquing how the nationalist imagination of the Global East has influenced countries across borders. Theoretically sophisticated and conceptually innovative, this book sheds new light on the transnational complexity of historical memory and imagination, the boundaries between democracy and mass dictatorship, and the fluidity of East and West.

This book offers a fresh and original approach to the study of one of the dominant features of the twentieth century. Adopting a truly global approach to the realities of modern dictatorship, this handbook examines the multiple ways in which dictatorship functions - both for the rulers and for the ruled - and draws on the expertise of more than twenty five distinguished contributors coming from European, American, and Asian universities. While confronting the immense complexities of repression and popular response under dictatorship, the volume also poses a series of wide-ranging questions about the political organization of present-day mass society.

The landscape of memory studies has been transformed by a growing consciousness of global interconnectedness and the politics of human rights. The essays in this volume of the Mass Dictatorship project explore the entangled pasts of dictatorships, the tensions between de-territorializing and re-territorializing memories, and the competitive construction of memories of the intersubjective past from a world-wide perspective. Written from a variety of differing historical perspectives, cultural positions, and disciplinary backgrounds, the collection searches for historical accountability across the generations of the post-war era.

This volume explores the politics of memory involved in 'coming to terms with the past' of mass dictatorship on a global scale. Considering how a growing sense of global connectivity and global human rights politics changed the memory landscape, the essays explore entangled pasts of dictatorships.

South Korean historian Jie-Hyun Lim, raised under an anticommunist dictatorship, turned to Marxian thought to explain his country's development, even as he came to struggle with its Eurocentrism. As a transnational scholar working in postcommunist Poland, Lim recognized striking similarities between Korean and Polish history and politics. One realization stood out: Both Korea and Poland-at once the "West" for Asia yet "Eastern" Europe-had been assigned the role of "East." This book explores entangled Easts to reconsider global history from the margins. Examining the politics of history and memory, Lim reveals the affinities linking Eastern Europe and East Asia. He draws out commonalities in their experiences of modernity, in their transitions from dictatorship to democracy, and in the shaping of collective memory. Ranging across Poland, Germany, Israel, Japan, and Korea, Lim traces the global history of how notions of victimhood have become central to nationalism. He criticizes mass dictatorships of right and left in the Global Easts, considering Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt's notion of sovereign dictatorship and the concept of decisionist democracy. Lim argues that nationalism is inherently transnational, critiquing how the nationalist imagination of the Global East has influenced countries across borders. Theoretically sophisticated and conceptually innovative, this book sheds new light on the transnational complexity of historical memory and imagination, the boundaries between democracy and mass dictatorship, and the fluidity of East and West.