Essays in museohistory. The presents of painful pasts : history museums and configurations of remembrance

This collective work raises questions about the present of painful pasts in our societies. It does this through a unique, yet increasingly familiar, cultural object: history museums. Be it slavery, colonialism, the World Wars, the Spanish Civil War, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, the communist regimes of Eastern Europe or the wars in Indochina and Vietnam, how the history of the past is presented and narrated is analysed, questioned and systematically confronted with historian knowledge. The deconstruction undertaken in this work takes into account three dimensions: cultural, social and political. It highlights memories and representations, as well as areas of hypermnesia and amnesia. It also identifies and contextualises major configurations of remembrance. Finally, it reveals the key issues and what is at stake, the strategies and constraints of the various key players involved in exposing the painful past of our humanity. For this reason, the analyses proposed can be qualified as essays in museohistory.