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Congratulations to Sam Edwards for successfully passing his viva. Sam's thesis, on 'War and Collective Memory: American Military Commemoration in Britain and France, 1943 to the present', examines sixty years of commemorativepractices connected to the World War IIactivities of the United States military in Europe.

He argues that the collective memories produced by such activities structured and re-structured the past according to the psychological, political and cultural imperatives of a particular moment in time, imperativesthat include, for example,veterans' life cycle andthe discourses of ColdWar transatlantic politics.

In short,he contends that in the production of collective memories, the past is always scripted according to the politics, and circumstances, of the present. Sam's external examiner, Professor Mark Connelly, commented that "The main arguments of the thesis - the complexity of war memory, its inherently political biases, and its continually unfolding nature - are explored and argued brilliantly." Congratulations!