Introduction: Writing History into Broken Narratives

Abstract

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the key themes discussed in the book. The book presents a number of case studies related to Europe and East Asia which reveal the difficulty of writing history for the nation while tackling transnational problems. The first and most interesting result of the assessments is that realized World War II (WWII) is at the heart of Post-Cold War historiography. The reconciliation which Western Europe had tried to make true in the wake of WWII established a war narrative which was focused on Western Europe and did not recognize the decisive influence of the Eastern European war theatre on the outcome of the war. Buchholz's contribution to the book focusing on Japanese prisoners of war in China and their fate after the Communist takeover is a good example to understand how mainland China tried to position. Keywords: Buchholz; China; East Asia; Eastern European war; Post-Cold War historiography; Western Europe; World War II (WWII)