What Our Monuments (Don't) Teach Us About Remembering The Past
A history professor who studies the politics of memory tells us what the United States can learn from how Germans remember their history.
As the debate rages over what role Confederate monuments do — and should — play in commemorating U.S. history, Jennifer Allen says we can learn a lot from Germany.
Allen is an assistant professor of German history at Yale University, and she specializes in something called memory politics.
She also attended the University of Virginia, located in Charlottesville, where violent clashes earlier this month over a statue of Robert E. Lee brought this debate back into the national spotlight.
The way people understand history, Allen says, is constantly evolving. And the discussions about monuments and the Confederacy, she says, are an opportunity
