Reconciliation After War: Historical Perspectives on Transitional Justice

This edited volume examines a range of historical and contemporary episodes of reconciliation and anti-reconciliation in the aftermath of war.

Reconciliation is a concept that resists easy definition. At the same time, it is almost invariably invoked as a goal of post-conflict reconstruction, peacebuilding and transitional justice. This book examines the considerable ambiguity and controversy surrounding the term and, crucially, asks what has reconciliation entailed historically? What can we learn from past episodes of reconciliation and anti-reconciliation? Taken together, the chapters in this volume adopt an interdisciplinary approach, focused on the question of how reconciliation has been enacted, performed and understood in particular historical episodes, and how that might contribute to our understanding of the concept and its practice. Rather than seek a universal definition, the book focuses on what makes each case of reconciliation unique, and highlights the specificity of reconciliation in individual contexts.

This book will be of much interest to students of transitional justice, conflict resolution, human rights, history and International Relations.

Rachel Kerr is a Reader in International Relations and Contemporary War in the Department of War Studies and co-Director of the War Crimes Research Group at King’s College London, UK.

Henry Redwood is a Lecturer in International Relations in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, UK.

James Gow is Professor of International Peace and Security and Co-Director of the War Crimes Research Group at King’s College London, UK, and Non-Resident Scholar, Liechtenstein Institute, Princeton University, USA.