"Anne Fuchs' After the Dresden Bombing: Pathways of Memory, 1945 to the Present is the more ambitious and wide-ranging. Her aim is to dissect what she terms 'the Dresden impact narrative' by exploring four different forms of media - pictures, architecture, literature, and film - that have transmitted this narrative. ... The book opens with a powerful discussion of the representation of Dresden in photography and fine art in the immediate post-war years." (Stefan Goebel, European History Quarterly, Vol. 46 (2), 2016)
'In this fascinating book, two things come together in a rare combination: an exemplary historical site with the weight of global iconicity and a paradigmatic case study that in its broad range of perspectives and
approaches sets new standards for cultural memory studies.'
- Aleida Assmann, University of Constance, Germany
'Anne Fuchs has produced a book of great sensitivity on the cultural memory of the destruction of Dresden. She traces those cultural templates that were used, reused, modified and replaced in an attempt to come to terms with an event which, ultimately, eluded representation or containment. Her interdisciplinary study provides an original, insightful and poignant narratology of traumatic memory.'
- Bill Niven, Nottingham Trent University, UK
'In this far-reaching, provocative and always illuminating book, Anne Fuchs explores how representations of Allied bombing made Dresden into a global icon that was at once tendentious and exhortative. 'Dresden 1945' resisted both political reflection by suppressing human agency and ideological instrumentalization by producing excessive nostalgia. Fuchs' great contribution is to show how the terrible destruction of World War II created the compelling effects of 'the aftermath of history' in our time.'
- Peter Fritzsche, University of Illinois, USA
