This book is about the effects of historical memory on the political affairs of nations. It is based on a detailed analysis of three countries who have struggled to face up to their morally troubling past in the wake of World War II – Germany, Austria, and Japan. The central objective of the book is to explain why these states have promoted particular official historical narratives and to identify the domestic and international consequences of their doing so. Why, for instance, did the Federal Republic of Germany early on adopt a relatively penitent stance regarding the crimes of the Nazi period, whereas Austria and Japan showed contrition only decades later, and in the case of Japan only partially so? Did Germany's willingness to confront the dark corners of its history promote better relations with its European neighbors? Why did Austria, despite being deeply implicated in the crimes of the Third Reich, tackle the question of its moral culpability only much later? Why has Japan only reluctantly apologized for its Imperial past in Asia? Has Japan's relatively impenitent stance poisoned its relations with its neighbors, as is commonly assumed, or was the impact of its lack of contrition relatively marginal or outweighed by other geopolitical or geoeconomic factors?

These are perennial questions in the study of postwar Europe and Asia and have been the subject of considerable debate for decades. Since the end of the Cold War, however, they have become more pressing than ever. Despite Germany's continued contrition for the crimes of the past, new German concerns with commemorating not only the victims of Nazism, but also the millions of Germans who became the victims of aerial bombardment and ethnic cleansing, have raised troubling questions about whether the memory of the Holocaust is in the process of being relativized, possibly heralding the reemergence of a more self-centered and assertive Federal Republic. Concerns on this score have been particularly pointed in the context of the Federal Republic's relations with Poland and the Czech Republic, but have also been evident in some of the misgivings regarding the German response to the recent economic crisis in the Eurozone. In Austria, the rapid ascent of Jőrg Haider's Freedom Party in the 1990s – culminating in its becoming part of the ruling coalition in 2000 – raised similar concerns and sparked a major diplomatic crisis within the European Union.