This project explored the reciprocal relationship between the memory of mass violence, from war crimes to genocide, on the one hand and legal proceedings on the other. It focuses on American memories. The resulting book is based on a series of research projects conducted in collaboration with undergraduate and graduate students. Ryan D. King (Ohio State University) is the co-author and most chapters have specific contributors. The title of the book is:
American Memories: Atrocities and the Law. New York: Russell Sage Foundation (a volume from the ASA Rose Monograph Series).
Content: American Memories uses historical and media accounts, court records, and survey research to examine a number of atrocities from the nation’s past, including the massacres of civilians by U.S. military in My Lai, Vietnam, and Haditha, Iraq. The book shows that when states initiate responses to such violence—via criminal trials, tribunals, or reconciliation hearings—they lay important groundwork for how such atrocities are viewed in the future. Trials can serve to delegitimize violence—even by a nation’s military— by creating a public record of grave offenses. But the law is filtered by and must also compete with other institutions, such as the media and historical texts, in shaping American memory. One chapter shows, for example, how the My Lai slayings of women, children, and elderly men by U.S. soldiers have been largely eliminated from or misrepresented in American textbooks, and the army’s reputation survived the episode untarnished. The American media nevertheless evoked the killings at My Lai in response to the murder of twenty-four civilian Iraqis in Haditha, during the war in Iraq – subject of another chapter. Since only one conviction was obtained for the My Lai massacre, and convictions for the killings in Haditha seem increasingly unlikely, Haditha in the near past is now bound inextricably to My Lai in the distant past. With virtually no criminal convictions, and none of higher ranks for either massacre, both events will continue to be misrepresented in American memory. In contrast, the book examines American representations of atrocities committed by foreign powers during the Balkan wars, which entailed the prosecution of ranking military and political leaders. The authors analyze news accounts of the war’s events and show how articles based on diplomatic sources initially cast Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in a less negative light, but court-based accounts increasingly portrayed Milosevic as a criminal, solidifying his image for the public record. American Memories suggests that a nation’s memories don’t just develop as a rejoinder to events—they are largely shaped by institutions. In the wake of atrocities, how a state responds has an enduring effect and provides a moral framework for whether and how we remember violent transgressions. The book shows that such responses can be instructive for how to deal with large-scale violence in the future, and hopefully how to deter it.
An audiobook version appeared here: <https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Joachim+J.+Savelsberg>
Related publications include:
American Memories: Atrocities and the Law. New York: Russell Sage Foundation (a volume from the ASA Rose Monograph Series).
Content: American Memories uses historical and media accounts, court records, and survey research to examine a number of atrocities from the nation’s past, including the massacres of civilians by U.S. military in My Lai, Vietnam, and Haditha, Iraq. The book shows that when states initiate responses to such violence—via criminal trials, tribunals, or reconciliation hearings—they lay important groundwork for how such atrocities are viewed in the future. Trials can serve to delegitimize violence—even by a nation’s military— by creating a public record of grave offenses. But the law is filtered by and must also compete with other institutions, such as the media and historical texts, in shaping American memory. One chapter shows, for example, how the My Lai slayings of women, children, and elderly men by U.S. soldiers have been largely eliminated from or misrepresented in American textbooks, and the army’s reputation survived the episode untarnished. The American media nevertheless evoked the killings at My Lai in response to the murder of twenty-four civilian Iraqis in Haditha, during the war in Iraq – subject of another chapter. Since only one conviction was obtained for the My Lai massacre, and convictions for the killings in Haditha seem increasingly unlikely, Haditha in the near past is now bound inextricably to My Lai in the distant past. With virtually no criminal convictions, and none of higher ranks for either massacre, both events will continue to be misrepresented in American memory. In contrast, the book examines American representations of atrocities committed by foreign powers during the Balkan wars, which entailed the prosecution of ranking military and political leaders. The authors analyze news accounts of the war’s events and show how articles based on diplomatic sources initially cast Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in a less negative light, but court-based accounts increasingly portrayed Milosevic as a criminal, solidifying his image for the public record. American Memories suggests that a nation’s memories don’t just develop as a rejoinder to events—they are largely shaped by institutions. In the wake of atrocities, how a state responds has an enduring effect and provides a moral framework for whether and how we remember violent transgressions. The book shows that such responses can be instructive for how to deal with large-scale violence in the future, and hopefully how to deter it.
An audiobook version appeared here: <https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Joachim+J.+Savelsberg>
Related publications include:
- Joachim J. Savelsberg, Ryan D. King and Yu-Ju Chien. 2014. “The Narrative Potential of Criminal Trials: War Crimes before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia“ (German). Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 285-308.
- Joachim J. Savelsberg. 2014. “Trials, Collective Memory, and Prospects of Human Rights.” In: Tribunals, edited by Werner Gephart et al. Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, pp. 117-136.
- Joachim J. Savelsberg and Ryan D. King. “Law and Collective Memory.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Vol. 3, pp. 189-211.
- Joachim J. Savelsberg and Ryan D. King. “Institutionalizing Collective Memories of Hate: Law and Law Enforcement in Germany and the United States.” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 111, No. 2, pp: 579-616. [2006 BEST ARTICLE AWARD, LAW AND SOCIETY ASSOCIATION; 2007 BEST ARTICLE AWARD, SECTION ON CULTURE, AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION]