| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.5

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 273 words from this article are provided below; about 581 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Methods/Theory

Alessandro Portelli. The Order Has Been Carried Out: History, Memory, and Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2003. Pp. 329. $39.95.
Over the last decade, Alessandro Portelli established himself as a scholar well known for his use of oral histories and his provocative ideas about history and memory. This new book demonstrates that Portelli is unrivaled in his abilities to capture memories, listen to their meanings, and to describe who "fights" battles over memory and why. He rewrites the history of a tragic and controversial moment in World War II Italy, while simultaneously unfolding the story of a city and its residents over a span of more than a century. In addition, Portelli connects these people, places, and events to broader contemporary issues as he discusses the morality of political violence and justifications for terror as legitimate acts of war.	1
Portelli has chosen two historical events and sites as the subject of this volume. These allow him to establish a plausible framework of verifiable "facts" against which "the creative work of memory and narrative can be measured and tested" (p. 16). The first event occurred on March 23, 1944, in via Rasella, a street in central Rome. There, a Communist-organized partisan unit attacked a German police patrol, killing thirty-three German soldiers, a young Italian boy, and another civilian. Less than twenty-four hours later, the German command selected 335 males held in their Roman prisons, transported them to an abandoned quarry in the south of Rome (later known as the Fosse Ardeatine, or Ardeatine tombs), and summarily shot and killed them.	. . .

There are about 581 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.