A three-year research project funded under the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission. Three years of research, January 2010 - January 2013, have proved that national museums do more than collect, preserve and display nations' most cherished objects. National museums balance the stability of the old with the disruption of the new. National museums can provide an institutionalized arena for negotiating new understandings of the nature of political community. The very manner in which unity and difference, threats and hopes are negotiated prepares the nation for both stability and change.

Bringing together key points from three years of research in short, clear texts and compelling photos, the report covers the role of museums as a stabilizing force for the changing nation, the varied ways museums perform this role, their use of exhibition and narrative strategies, the way their histories are dependent on local political conditions, and the resultant silences that deny a complete or complex history. It includes a substantive discussion of the ways in which European national museums deal with conflict, promoting partisan division, obscurantist ignorance, or future-oriented reconciliation.