Introducing Peace Museums

There has been and continues to be an enormous growth in museums and memorials world-wide after World War Two, particularly war museums, memorials, and those focusing on historic atrocity from slavery to disappeared peoples and genocide. This volume examines peace museums, a small and important (but often overlooked) series of museums whose numbers have multiplied from the 1970s on from Japan, where there are the largest number of peace museums, across the UK, Spain and Costa Rica. It introduces the history and significance of peace museums and their different approaches through a selected series of peace museum sites.

This volume attempts to categorize and distinguish between different types of museums that are linked to peace in name, theme or purpose and to urge a "critical peace museums studies" in examining their varied emphasis and content. The author discusses the fluidity and debates on definitions and goals of peace museums versus museums for peace. This book is the first of its kind in providing criteria for what constitutes a peace museum, and going beyond description to critically evaluate the exhibitions, programs and goals of a selected group of museums.