Silencing the Past - (Beacon Classics) by Michel-Rolph Trouillot (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A deluxe hardcover edition of the pioneering classic that explores the contexts in which history is produced--now part of the HBO docuseries Exterminate All the Brutes, written and directed by Raoul Peck

A Beacon Classics edition, featuring a spot gloss cover and retro, classic palette

Placing the West's failure to acknowledge the Haitian Revolution--the most successful slave revolt in history--alongside denials of the Holocaust and the debate over the Alamo, Michel-Rolph Trouillot offers a stunning meditation on how power operates in the making and recording of history.

This modern classic resides at the intersection of history, anthropology, Caribbean, African-American, and post-colonial studies, and has become a staple in college classrooms around the country. Trouillot analyzes the silences in our historical narratives, what is left out and what is recorded, what is remembered and what is forgotten, and what these silences reveal about inequalities of power. With exacting precision, he exposes forces less visible--but no less powerful--than gunfire, property, and political crusades in shaping the production of history.

Review Quotes

Now that so many grand projects of the past are up for reappraisal, Michel-Rolph Trouillot interrogates history, to ask how histories are in fact produced. . . . A beautifully written book, exciting in its challenges. --Eric R. Wolf

"An accessible book filled with wisdom and humanity." --Bernard Mergen, American Studies International

"Aphoristic and witty, [Silencing the Past] shows that the two senses in which history is made, by doers and by tellers, meet in moments of evidentiary silence. [A] hard-nosed look at the soft edges of public discourse about the past." --Arjun Appadurai

"Trouillot is a first-rate scholar with provocative ideas. . . . His work [is] a feast for the mind." --Jay Freeman, Booklist

"Trouillot makes the postmodernist debate come alive." --Choice

"A sparkling interrogation of the past. . . . A beautifully written, superior book." --Foreign Affairs

"Elegantly written and richly allusive. . . Silencing the Past is an important contribution to the anthropology of history. Its most lasting impression is made perhaps by Trouillot's own voice--endlessly agile, sometimes cuttingly funny, but always evocative in a direct and powerful, almost poetic way." --Donald L. Donham, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"Written with clarity, wit, and style throughout, this book is for everyone interested in historical culture."--Civilization

About the Author

Michel-Rolph Trouillot, one of the most prominent Haitian scholars in the United States, is director of the Institute for Global Studies in culture, Power, and History and Krieger/Eisenhower Distinguished Professor in anthropology at Johns Hopkins University.