Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History
by Michel-Rolph Trouillot

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Book Reviews of Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History

Book Review: Challenging philosophical look at historical method
Summary: 5 Stars

The first thing which is lost are some sources. For many of us there simply are no sources kept. For others there may have been historical traces but they have gotten lost or destroyed in time.

The next level of such data is that when data is collected and selected for various archives there is another level of things getting lost, sources, which there and existing, are effectively lost since there were not judged worthy of archiving.

Lastly, the individual historian much choose from the archival material what is important in telling the story of history the author is telling. Again in this process of selection events and parts of history get lost and suppressed.

What emerges as the story of history, what we, the readers and consumers of history come to regard as the REAL past, real history, is filtered in ways that we seldom acknowledge or realize.

Trouillot demonstrates this thesis with examples from Haitian history and chooses the clever divice of San Souci. There were three San Soucis. One was a person and two others were buildings. The first, the person was lost at the source. The second was weeded out in the typical archives. The last, while exciting at some level, is still not within the mainstream of most Haitian history. Trouillot books makes us sit back and realize that we have to realize there is no real HISTORY, but only the story that the sources that have survived and have been selected as important allow us to tell.

A delightful read. For a much more systematic and longer review please e-mail me and I'll send it to you.

Africa Books

• Books > Subjects > History
• Americas > Caribbean & West Indies > Haiti
• Historical Study > Historiography
• Philosophy of History
• World
• Social Sciences