Examining the collective trauma of perpetrators (especially German national identity between 1945 and 2000) as well as victims, this book provides a fascinating insight into post-utopian patterns of collective identity in a globalised world.

Foreword, S. N. Eisenstadt; Introduction; Chapter 1 Triumphant Heroes; Chapter 2 Victims; Chapter 3 The Tragic Hero: The Decapitation of the King; Chapter 4 The Trauma of Perpetrators; Chapter 5 Postscript;

Bernhard Giesen, professor of sociology at the University of Konstanz, Germany, is the author most recently of Intellecdtuals and the Nation: Collective Identity in a German Axial Age (Cambridge, 1998) and The Micro-Macro Link (University of California Press).