Reconciling With the Past ─ Resources and Obstacles in a Global Perspective

Are countries truly reconciled after successful conflict resolution? Are only resource-rich regions capable of reconciliation, while supposedly resource-poor ones are condemned to recurring conflicts?

This book examines the availability of various resources for political reconciliation, and explores how they are utilized in overcoming particular obstacles during the process. While the existing literature focus on themes such as justice, apology and resentment, the analysis here is centered on intellectual resources in terms of ideas, memory cultures, master narratives, economic incentives, civil society initiatives and object lessons.

The research and comparative research in this volume are conducted by renowned regional experts from South Africa to the Asia-Pacific, thus providing multi-disciplinary perspectives and new insight on the subject.

Annika Frieberg is an Assistant Professor at San Diego State University. She studied Modern and Central European History at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She has taught courses in 19th and 20th century European and East European history. Her research and teaching interests center on war and genocide, conflict resolution, media, national, and transnational questions in Central Europe. She has published several articles, including "Reconciliation Remembered. Early Activists and the Polish-German Relations" in Re-Mapping Polish-German Memory, which was published by Indiana University Press in 2011. Dr. Frieberg is currently working on her book manuscript, "Costly Reconciliation: Transnational Networks and Media in post-war Polish-German Relations."

C. K. Martin Chung is research assistant professor of the European Union Academic Programme Hong Kong at Hong Kong Baptist University. He holds a PhD from the University of Hong Kong (2014) and was a lecturer at the University of St. Joseph (Macau). He was a recipient of the Asia-Europe Comparative Studies Research Project Grant 2014 by the Institute of European Studies of Macau. He conducts research on political reconciliation and "coming to terms with the past" in Europe and East Asia. His latest publication is "Repentance: The Jewish Solution to the German Problem", in: Jahrbuch des Simon-Dubnow-Instituts 2015, Vol. 14, pp. 129-155.