Sébastien Ledoux, „The Duty of Memory: Changing Language in the Era of Memory, 1970 – 2010“

Within France, the expression “duty of memory” (devoir de mémoire) speaks to a complex and ever-evolving relationship with the past. Emerging in the 1970s, this term raised questions about memorialization which dominated public debates in the 1990s, highlighting France’s entanglements with colonialism and the Holocaust. Drawing on a variety of interviews, archival sources, and data surveys, author Sébastien Ledoux spotlights how the trajectory of this term offers a lens for understanding contemporary societies’ relationship with the past on a global scale.

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Biography 

Sébastien Ledoux is a historian and senior lecturer at the Université de Picardie Jules Verne. His work focuses on the political, social, and cultural aspects of memory in contemporary societies. He is the author of several books: Le devoir de mémoire (CNRS Editions, 2016), La nation en récit (Belin Editeur, 2021), and Histoire et mémoires (CNRS Editions, 2024). In addition to this, he has edited several collected works on a variety of topics, including digital memories, memory laws, teaching, and colonial memories.

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Table of Contents

Introduction: Inventing the Origins of “Duty of Memory”

Part I: Emergence (Pre-1992)

Chapter 1.The Sign of a New Language of Memory

Chapter 2. The “Memory of Auschwitz,” a New Reference in the Present

Chapter 3. The Invention of “Memory Policy” (1980s)

Part II: Proliferation (1992-1993)

Chapter 4. Publicization of “Duty of Memory” as Part of a Rhetoric of Denunciation (1992)

Chapter 5. “Duty of Memory” as an Official Expression (1993)

Chapter 6. A Sociohistorical Analysis of the Crystallization of “Duty of Memory”

Part III: Grammar (1995-2005)

Chapter 7. The Memory of Holocaust as a Frame of Reference

Chapter 8. A Tool for Mobilizing Other Memories

Chapter 9. “Governance of the Past”: The Example of the Vote on “Memory Laws” (1998-2005)

Part IV: Defiance (2000-2012)

Chapter 10. Criticism of Scientific Discourse

Chapter 11. Political Distancing

Chapter 12. “Duty of Memory”: A Shift to the Local Level

Conclusion: Duty of Memory: A Global History

Bibliography

Index

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Published in July 2025

ISBN: 978-1-83695-041-7

288 pages

https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/LedouxDuty

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