Disputed Territories and Shared Pasts Overlapping National Histories in Modern Europe

National historical writings in Europe traditionally deal with acts of aggression, hostile neighbours and international conflicts across borders, presenting history as a narrative of suffering and victories. For centuries, national histories have been constructed as sequences of battles and wars, with war heroes playing key roles. Yet, major victories for any one nation invariably cause tragedies for others. Historians in different national communities have written comparable histories about their shared pasts in contested territories: it is this phenomenon that we call 'overlapping national histories' in this book. Disputed Territories, Shared Pasts focuses on the historiographical overlaps in Europe, presenting many of the contested areas alongside state borders, in historical regions between states, and among ethnic groups and nations within states. Sponsored by the European Science Foundation, the present volume is part of the Writing the Nation series, a major international project on the history of historiography in Europe. -- Back cover.