It is commonly known that people tend to use history to legitimize their own interests and shape public opinion. I'm curious if anyone can recommend a good book where the author delves into how history has been used as an ideological and political weapon.
Thanks!
Forging the Collective Memory: Government and International Historians through two World Wars by Keith Wilson is a good place to start. It's a collection of essays by various historians that describes how governments after the first world war (and the second) influenced public opinion through official histories. Holger Herwig's essay on the 'War Guilt Innocence' campaign by the German Foreign Office is especially enlightening.
Margaret MacMillan also has a book called The Uses and Abuses of History that would also be worth a look into.