Silencing the Past

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

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.

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