From the Ashes of History: Collective Trauma and the Making of International Politics

In recent years, calls for reparations and restorative justice, alongside the rise of populist grievance politics, have demonstrated the stubborn resilience of traumatic memory. From the transnational Black Lives Matter movement's calls for reckoning with the legacy of slavery and racial oppression, to continued efforts to secure recognition of the Armenian genocide or Imperial Japan's human rights abuses, international politics is replete with examples of past violence reasserting itself in the present. But how should scholars understand trauma's long-term impacts? Why do some traumas lie dormant for generations, only to surface anew in pivotal moments? And how does trauma scale from individuals to larger political groupings like nations and states, shaping political identities, grievances, and policymaking?In From the Ashes of History, Adam B. Lerner looks at collective trauma as a foundational force in international politics--a "shock" to political cultures that can constitute new actors and shape decision-making over the long-term. As Lerner shows, uncovering collective trauma's role in international politics is vital for two key reasons. First, it can help explain longstanding tensions between groups--an especially relevant topic as scholars examine the transnational resurgence of nationalism and populism. Second, it pushes the discipline of International Relations to more completely account for mass violence's true long-term costs, particularly as they become embedded in longstanding structural inequalities and injustices. While IR scholarship has largely dismissed non-systematic, latent phenomena like trauma, Lerner argues that collective trauma can help draw the lines between international political groups and frame the logics of international political action. Drawing on three historical cases that uncover the impact of collective trauma in Indian, Israeli, and American foreign policymaking, From the Ashes of History demonstrates the broad utility of collective trauma as a theoretical lens for investigating how mass violence's legacy can resurge and dissipate over time.

Table of Contents:
Part I Chapter 1: Collective Trauma and the Making of International Politics Chapter 2: Theorizing Collective Trauma Chapter 3: Collective Trauma and Identity: A Necessary Liaison Part II Chapter 4: Colonialism as Collective Trauma: Economic Nationalism and Autarkic State-Building in India Chapter 5: Victimhood Nationalism in Israel: The Eichmann Trial's Role in Israeli Foreign Policy Discourse Chapter 6: Blurring the Boundaries of War: PTSD and the Collectivization of US Combat Trauma Chapter 7: Conclusion References Index

About the Author :
Adam B. Lerner is permanent Lecturer (Assistant Professor) of Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London. He also serves as Deputy Director of Royal Holloway's Centre for International Security (RHISC).

Review :
The book covers an impressive historical and theoretical ground...this is a very timely book. Ultimately, this book shows not only the extent to which collective trauma is foundational to international politics, but also how it fuels and bends the arc of history. When championed and re-narrated by political actors with sufficient urgency, collective trauma can morph into a national and state identity that has the force to alter the logics and course of international politics. The theoretical framework and empirical materials that the book puts forth allow for new ways of reading collective trauma beyond a mere phenomenon subject to savvy political manipulation. Lerner also highlights the western bias in trauma studies, which limits a conceptualization of collective trauma suitable to international political theory, a necessary corrective that this book provides. From the Ashes of History is a very impressive scholarly achievement. Combining sharp and innovative theorizing with rich empirical analysis, Lerner has made a major contribution to debates over the role of history, memory, and trauma in international politics. Constructivist IR Theory has paid increasing attention to 'memory' and 'emotion.' Lerner brilliantly argues for extending the focus to 'collective trauma' and its links to personal and group identity, state-building, nationalism, and general political cohesion. This is a landmark book Through meticulous, powerful, and gripping case studies and a careful but also forceful set of theoretical assertions, Lerner's ambitious book brilliantly demonstrates the impact of collective trauma and mass violence upon international politics in the past, present, and future. Adam Lerner's timely and insightful work, From the ashes of history, has ventured into a relatively new and exciting area of International Relations (IR) that links international politics and social psychology. Lerner has targeted a gap that exists within the IR literature on the political interpretations of collective trauma, bridging rationalist and critical scholarship in IR. Lerner is brilliant in challenging IR's traditional, event-based approach. In the final chapter, he opens the door for bringing the newer dimension of trauma and narrative into the IR fold. The book is an accessible read, and its emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration will enrich the next generation of IR scholars.