Read more
On its publication in 2009, Shlomo Sand's book The Invention of the Jewish People met with a storm of controversy. His demystifying approach to nationalist and Zionist historiography provoked much criticism from other professional historians, as well as praise. The furore gave him a privileged position to consider his academic discipline, which he reflects on here in Twilight of History.
Drawing on four decades in the field, Sand takes a wider view and interrogates the study of history, whose origin lay in the need for a national ideology. Over the last few decades, traditional history has begun to fragment, yet only to give rise to a new role for historians as priests of official memory. Working in Israel has sharpened Sand's perspective, since the role of history as national myth is particularly salient in a country where the Bible is treated as a source of historical fact. He asks such questions as: Is every historical narrative ideologically marked? Do political requirements and state power weigh down inordinately on historical research and teaching? And, in such conditions, can there be a morally neutral and "scientific" truth?
Despite his trenchant criticism of academic history, Sand would still like to believe that the past can be understood without myth, and finds reasons for hope in the work of Max Weber and Georges Sorel.
About the author
Shlomo Sand studied history at the University of Tel Aviv and at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, in Paris. He currently teaches contemporary history at the University of Tel Aviv. His books include The Invention of the Jewish People, On the Nation and the Jewish People, L'Illusion du politique: Georges Sorel et le débat intellectuel 1900, Georges Sorel en son temps, Le XXe siècle à l'écran and Les Mots et la terre: les intellectuels en Israël.
Report
Sand makes aconvincing case against linear history, retrospectively invented continuities, anachronistic or ahistorical transpositions. He stresses the necessity of situating one's own point of view, contextualizing and historicizing events, bringing to light bifurcations, paths not taken, contradictions and possibilities. And above all, of never sticking to the views of the dominant and the victors. Roland Pfefferkorn La Marseillaise
