Engaging with Records and Archives: Histories and Theories

Abstract

Reviews tend to be the norm in negotiations about archival displacement. In his finely crafted chapter 10, "Iraq and Kuwait: The Seizure and Destruction of Historical Patrimony," Bruce Montgomery, for example, describes how, even with the support of the United Nations (UN) Security Council resolutions, the Kuwaitis' call for the return of their archives seized during Iraq's 1990 invasion remains unanswered in the international community (p. 159). In chapter 9, "Pan-European Displaced Archives in the Russian Federation: Still Prisoners of War on the 70th Anniversary of V-E Day," Patricia Kennedy Grimsted astutely details, in turn, Russian recalcitrance in regard to the repatriation of Nazi-era archives to Germany (p. 140). The preceding argumentation attests that the specter of displaced archives still occupies a haunted seat at the diplomatic table of nations. Returning to Hamlet, however, Marcellus declares: "Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio." 2 In Displaced Archives, thirteen skillful scholars have ably taken up Marcellus's call, cleared our distracted minds, and prepared a precise route into the complex subject of archival displacement. The international archival community must now follow, learn, and teach this path of new theoretical, technical, and political insights. And through this process, archivists will oust the ghosts of displaced archives and attain true justice-restored archives.