A discussion of how modern Hungarian history was exploited in the first post-communist years of the 1990s. It focuses on the Hungarian "uprising" in 1956, and how the memory of this upsetting "event" has later influenced Hungarian political thought.

He focuses on political transition and the struggle of the past in general, new collective identities in post-communism, nationalism and anti-Semitism, difficulties in creating an independent media, and the debates over "historical justice" after communism.