Realms of Memory

Remembering the Slave Trade in Liverpool

How has the slave trade been remembered in Liverpool—the world’s leading slave-trading port city in the eighteenth century?  Jessica Moody, author of The Persistence of Memory: Remembering Slavery in Liverpool, ‘slaving capital of the world,’ explains how the slave trade has never been forgotten in Liverpool. It has lived on through public debates about the city’s identity, through the city’s anniversaries, through the city’s black population, through the celebrations of civic heroes, through museums and through the streets and neighborhoods long connected to Liverpool’s dark past. 

Yasukuni Shrine and Japan’s Memory of the Asia-Pacific War

Why has Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine become such a lightning rod for the memory wars in Japan about the Asia-Pacific War?  Akiko Takenaka, author of Yasukuni Shrine: History, Memory, and Japan’s Unending Postwar, helps us understand how the meaning of Yasukuni has changed over time and why it has become the nation’s most controversial memory site.  

Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil

How did Germany go from being an international pariah at the end of World War II to a leader of the European Union and one of the most trusted nations on the planet? In Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil, Susan Neiman argues that having the courage to confront the past did much to transform Germany’s image at home and abroad. 

Realms of Memory

Realms of Memory is a podcast that looks at how countries confront their darkest chapters, what they gain by doing so, and what happens when they fail to take up this challenge.  We feature the insights of leading experts on a wide range of difficult national memories.