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In the face of conflict and despair, we often console ourselves by saying that history will be the judge. Today's oppressors may escape being held responsible for their crimes, but the future will condemn them. Those who stand up for progressive values are on the right side of history. As ideas once condemned to the dustbin of history--white supremacy, hypernationalism, even fascism--return to the world, threatening democratic institutions and values, can we still hold out hope that history will render its verdict?
List of contents
Preface: History, Race, Nation
1. The Nation- State as the Telos of History: Nuremberg, 1946
2. The Limits of Forgiveness: South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 1996
3. Calling History to Account: The Movement for Reparations for Slavery in the United States
Epilogue: Revisioning History
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
About the author
Joan Wallach Scott is professor emerita in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. Her Columbia University Press books include Gender and the Politics of History, thirtieth anniversary edition (2018), and Knowledge, Power, and Academic Freedom (2019).
Summary
Joan Wallach Scott critically examines the belief that history will redeem us, revealing the implicit politics of appeals to the judgment of history. She argues that the notion of a linear, ever-improving direction of history hides the persistence of power structures and hinders the pursuit of alternative futures.
Additional text
This is a book of reflection, deep reflection, not new research. The rewards of reading come from Scott’s penetrating analyses of familiar historical materials and her dialogue with other analysts, from Hannah Arendt to Michel de Certeau to Ta-Nehisi Coates
