“Europe” on Display: A postcolonial reading of the House of European History1

This contribution investigates the House of European History in Brussels. Taking a postcolonial perspective, I focus on what is made central and what is made peripheral to the narrative the House constructs. The museum reflects what Shore describes as the contradictory use of culture in official European discourses, conceiving of Europe as a unified cultural entity on the one hand, and as a space of diversity on the other hand (2006). Ultimately, I argue, this contradiction compromises the House’s ambition to present a history that allows room for the different experiences and stories that are lived and remembered within Europe.