Throughout Europe, narratives about the past circulate at a dizzying speed, and producing and selling these narratives is big business. In museums, in cinema and opera houses, in schools, and even on the Internet, Europeans are using the power of performance to craft stories that ultimately define the ways their audiences understand and remember history.

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Performing the Past "offers unparalleled insights into the philosophical, literary, musical, and historical frameworks within which the past has entered into the European imagination. The essays in this volume, from such...