This book is about the effects of historical memory on the political affairs ofnations. It is based on a detailed analysis of three countries who havestruggled to face up to their morally troubling past in the wake of WorldWar II – Germany, Austria, and Japan. The central objectiveof the book is to explain why these states have promoted particular officialhistorical narratives and to identify the domestic and internationalconsequences of their doing so. Why, for instance, did the Federal Republic ofGermany early on adopt a relatively penitent stance regarding the crimes of theNazi period, whereas Austria and Japan showed contrition only decades later, andin the case of Japan only partially so? Did Germany's willingness to confrontthe dark corners of its history promote better relations with its Europeanneighbors? Why did Austria, despite being deeply implicated in the crimes of theThird Reich, tackle the question of its moral culpability only much later? Whyhas Japan only reluctantly apologized for its Imperial past in Asia? Has Japan'srelatively impenitent stance poisoned its relations with its neighbors, as iscommonly assumed, or was the impact of its lack of contrition relativelymarginal or outweighed by other geopolitical or geoeconomic factors?

These are perennial questions in the study of postwar Europe and Asia and havebeen the subject of considerable debate for decades. Since the end of the ColdWar, however, they have become more pressing than ever. Despite Germany'scontinued contrition for the crimes of the past, new German concerns withcommemorating not only the victims of Nazism, but also the millions of Germanswho became the victims of aerial bombardment and ethnic cleansing, have raisedtroubling questions about whether the memory of the Holocaust is in the processof being relativized, possibly heralding the reemergence of a more self-centeredand assertive Federal Republic. Concerns on this score have been particularlypointed in the context of the Federal Republic's relations with Poland and theCzech Republic, but have also been evident in some of the misgivings regardingthe German response to the recent economic crisis in the Eurozone. In Austria,the rapid ascent of Jőrg Haider's Freedom Party in the 1990s –culminating in its becoming part of the ruling coalition in 2000 – raisedsimilar concerns and sparked a major diplomatic crisis within the EuropeanUnion.