A review by ema_ab
Silencing the Past, by Michel-Rolph Trouillot
5.0
4.5/5
In general, the theory and the approach are ground-breaking. After reading this, I don't think I will ever view history the same way again. Instead, I will continuously ask about the silences, narratives and power at play at creating the two. By looking for silences, we can actually find the history, and this has been overlooked for too long, resulting in incomplete, one-angled version of events. A must-read for any social sciences student, but really anyone in general. I would say though that the narrow focus on the Haitian revolution in what is otherwise a general-purpose concept was a bit strange at times; if the author had provided more varied examples (like did in the third chapter), I believe the concepts he was getting at would have appealed and been understood by more people.
In general, the theory and the approach are ground-breaking. After reading this, I don't think I will ever view history the same way again. Instead, I will continuously ask about the silences, narratives and power at play at creating the two. By looking for silences, we can actually find the history, and this has been overlooked for too long, resulting in incomplete, one-angled version of events. A must-read for any social sciences student, but really anyone in general. I would say though that the narrow focus on the Haitian revolution in what is otherwise a general-purpose concept was a bit strange at times; if the author had provided more varied examples (like did in the third chapter), I believe the concepts he was getting at would have appealed and been understood by more people.