This collection provides an introduction to the multiple uses of history in contemporary political debate and conflict, for introductory and advanced courses in comparative politics and contemporary world history. As communities reimagine themselves, a contest over defining legitimacy, identifying us and others, and jockeying for political control intersects with fights over history and memory. Here distinguished scholars examine how competing versions of national identity are legitimized through appeals to carefully constructed "pasts" both in democracies and in repressive regimes. The essays focus on the cases of Armenia, Chile, Spain, Germany, India and Pakistan, Israel and Palestine, Japan, Nigeria, and the United States to draw broader conclusions about the worldwide effect of traumatic memory, questions of punishment and restitution, and the instrumentalization of the past for political purposes.