Memory and Truth
The chapters vary in their levels of clarity, accessibility, and theoretical contribution. Some offer sharp and clearly written essays with new evidence and analytical insights; in others, high levels of abstraction render the theoretical points rather opaque. Several authors acknowledge the complexity and ambiguity of such concepts as “collective memory” itself (190), while others use that term and others such as “counterhegemony” without defining or interrogating them (for example, 3, 4, 7, 11). All the authors share the view that memory is fluid, something constructed that changes with new contexts and new times (for example, 44). Several critique the “theory of two demons” (Crenzel, 16; Salvi, 38), the idea that armed forces and opposition movements were equally culpable for the violence and terror of the dirty wars. The concept continues to appear in various academic and journalistic works.