Book Description

Dutch commentators repeatedly claim that their nation has forgotten its violent colonial past. In this compelling study, however, Paul Bijl demonstrates that photographs of colonial atrocities have appeared consistently in the Dutch public sphere and remain widely available in print, on television, and online. The nation, he argues, has not forgotten; rather, the Dutch have failed to absorb the meaning of these ubiquitous images and the scenes they depict. Ultimately, Bijl illuminates the shadowy zone between remembering and forgetting a zone populated by histories that do not correspond to the narratives we construct about the past.