The maintenance of a nation’s identity as a nation depends crucially upon its particular historical memories and repressions. Such memories can be expressed in venues and terms that resonate with existing recollections: collected somewhere, in some form. The law is one such form. Documents, records, transcripts, sealed with the imprimatur of governmental authority, are other, related forms. But memories needn’t be official needn’t even be true in any objective sense to have nation making power. Movies, newspapers, art installations, poetry, can all be powerful expressions of national memory, hence national identity.