Explores the way in which the main combatant societies of the Second World War have historicised that experience. Bosworth argues that the traumatic history of the war has remained crucial to the politics of post-war societies. `... thought-provoking and widely researched study of history-writing since 1945.' - Contemporary European History`It is a very witty and erudite discussion of what historians in the combatant countries have made of the horrors of the Second War World.' - Scotland on Sunday`This is an extremely valuable, thought-provoking book. It undertakes an ambitious task of relating the study of history in many countries to the cataclysmic developments of the Second World War - not just the battles fought, but including the rise of fascism, domestic divisions, and atrocities committed at home and abroad ... This is an enormously complex story, but the author presents it thoughtfully and imaginatively, always asking the crucial question, how history affects a historian, and how a historian shapes history.' - Akira Iriye, Harvard University