Lessons of History: Learning from Catastrophe and Crisis in Twentieth-Century Europe

Historical lessons are useful or even necessary for our guidance and orientation in time. These lessons, however, have often been overlooked in historical reflections on watershed moments, such as genocides, treaties, and global movements. Focusing on how cataclysmic events, primarily within Central and Eastern Europe, have been transmitted across borders and generations, this volume interrogates how the theory of historical lessons has evolved, ultimately providing a useful framework for understanding contemporary conflicts and issues. Spanning topics from the mediation of history within film to the influence of historical oppression on student activism, this volume re-evaluates historiography’s potential for analyzing the past and engaging with the present.

Klas-Göran Karlsson is Professor of History at Lund University. Throughout his career, he has led large research projects, including the on-going project Lessons of Communist and Nazi History: A Genealogical Approach and, from 2001-2008, The Holocaust and European Historical Cultures. A specialist in Russian and Soviet history, genocide history, and the uses of history in Europe, his recent publications include; Perspectives on the Entangled History of Communism and Nazism (co-editor, Lexington 2015) and Lessons of History: The Holocaust and Soviet Terror as Borderline Events (Academic Studies Press, 2024).

Maria Karlsson is a researcher and lecturer in the department of History at Lund University. She was awarded her doctorate in 2015 with a thesis entitled, Cultures of Denial. Comparing Holocaust and Armenian Genocide Denial, which compared Western, postwar denial of two of the twentieth century’s most well-known cases of genocide. Her research interests include revisionism, the lessons of the Holocaust, and the difficulties of narrating controversial genocide history online.