This study analyses South Africa and Rwandas emergence from a past of gross human rights abuses, focusing on the articulation between the politics of memory and identity and history education. A common struggle of societies emerging from violent conflict is that of re-inventing or re-imagining the nation. Education policy in post-conflict societies becomes an arena for asserting political visions for a new society - the history curriculum the means through which new collective memories and identities are reflected and asserted. The legacy of trauma is critical to the analysis educational...