Dark Pasts

{{Short description|Book by historian Jennifer Dixon}}{{Infobox book

| image = Dark Pasts.jpg

| author = Jennifer Dixon

| pub_date = 2018

| language = English

| country = United States

| genre = Non-fiction

| publisher = Cornell University Press

| name = Dark Pasts: Changing the State's Story in Turkey and Japan

}}

{{italic title}}

Dark Pasts: Changing the State's Story in Turkey and Japan (2018) is a book by historian Jennifer Dixon that discusses controversies around Japanese war crimes in World War II and the Armenian genocide denial in Turkey.{{cite journal |last1=Neyzi |first1=Leyla |title=A Comparative Approach to Official Discourse on Past Atrocities: The Possibilities and Limits of Models: Dark Pasts: Changing the State's Story in Turkey and Japan, by Jennifer M. Dixon, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2018, 276 pp., USD$55.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9781501730245 |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |date=2020 |pages=1–5 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2020.1800169|s2cid=225373889 |url=http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/224998/2/224998.pdf }}{{cite journal |last1=Goalwin |first1=Gregory J |title=Jennifer M.Dixon, Dark Pasts: Changing the State's Story in Turkey and Japan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018. 276 pp. $55.00 (hbk). |journal=Nations and Nationalism |date=2020 |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=780–781 |doi=10.1111/nana.12630|s2cid=225776763 }}{{cite journal |last1=Mouradian |first1=Khatchig |title=Mouradian on Dixon, 'Dark Pasts: Changing the State's Story in Turkey and Japan' |journal=H-Net |date=2019 |url=https://networks.h-net.org/node/28443/reviews/5117018/mouradian-dixon-dark-pasts-changing-states-story-turkey-and-japan |access-date=3 January 2021 |quote=Throughout the 2000s (and to this day), the official Turkish narrative has denied outright, and systematically, that the experience of the Armenians was a crime at all, let alone a genocide. Whatever linguistic acrobatics the state narrative has performed does not change this reality.}}{{cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Roger W. |title=Review Essay: Narratives of Dark Pasts—Continuity and Change |journal=Genocide Studies International |date=2020 |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=190–198 |doi=10.3138/gsi.13.2.04|s2cid=216385074 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/690 |url-access=subscription }}{{cite journal |last1=Bakiner |first1=Onur |title=Dark Pasts: Changing the State's Story in Turkey and Japan, by Jennifer M. Dixon, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2018, $55.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9781501730245. |journal=Nationalities Papers |date=2020 |volume=48 |issue=5 |pages=958–960 |doi=10.1017/nps.2019.126|s2cid=225297846 }}{{cite journal |last1=Berger |first1=Thomas U. |title=Dark Pasts: Changing the State's Story in Turkey and Japan. By Jennifer M. Dixon. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018. 276p. $55.00 cloth. |journal=Perspectives on Politics |date=2019 |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=934–935 |doi=10.1017/S1537592719002160|s2cid=202257445 }}{{cite journal |last1=Bose |first1=Sumantra |title=Interrogating Dark Pasts: Japan, Turkey, and Beyond: Dark Pasts: Changing the State's Story in Turkey and Japan, by Jennifer M. Dixon, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2018, 276 pp., USD$55.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9781501730245 |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |date=2020 |pages=1–4 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2020.1800168|s2cid=225409844 }}{{cite journal |last1=Zwigenberg |first1=Ran |title=Whose Dark Pasts? War Memories and the "Tunnel Vision" of the Nation: Dark Pasts: Changing the State's Story in Turkey and Japan, by Jennifer M. Dixon, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2018, 276 pp., USD$55.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9781501730245 |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |date=2020 |pages=1–6 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2020.1800170|s2cid=225410314 }} According to Dixon, states tend to deny rather than glorify their past crimes due to international constraints.{{cite journal |last1=Sanders |first1=Rebecca |title=Dark Pasts, Dark Futures? Narrative, Constraint, and the Challenge of Ascendant Nationalism: Dark Pasts: Changing the State's Story in Turkey and Japan, by Jennifer M. Dixon, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2018, USD$55.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9781501730245 |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |date=2020 |pages=1–6 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2020.1800167 |s2cid=225480162 |quote=However, if ardent nationalists and militarists were willing to commit the Armenian Genocide and Nanjing Massacre, why haven’t they been willing to admit these atrocities? ... Although focused on the material and ideational reasons why states resist showing contrition, Dark Pasts helps answer why unrepentant nationalists avoid unambiguously justifying dark politics... These patterns of evasion reveal that even far-right Turkish and Japanese nationalists understood that embracing mass atrocity crimes could be politically damaging, a source of shame, and a stain on the nation.}}