Learning from the Germans: Confronting Race and the Memory of Evil

(Paperback)

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As the western world struggles with legacies of racism and colonialism, Susan Neiman asks what we can learn from the Germans about confronting the evils of the past What can we learn from the past in order to move forward Susan Neiman's Learning from the Germans delivers an urgently needed perspective on how a country can come to terms with its historical wrongdoings. Neiman, who grew up as a white girl in the American South during the civil rights movement, is a Jewish woman who has spent much of her adult life in Berlin. In clear and gripping prose, she uses this unique perspective to combine philosophical reflection, personal history and conversations with both Americans and Germans who are grappling with the evils of their own national histories. Through focusing on the particularities of those histories, she provides examples for other nations, whether they are facing resurgent nationalism, ongoing debates over reparations or controversies surrounding historical monuments and the contested memories they evoke. It is necessary reading for all those confronting their own troubled pasts.

Reviews

Susan Neiman relates hard truths from which others shrink. Her audacious work is a refreshing change from those, afraid to offend, who leave unsaid things that seem self-evident. * The Guardian *
Growing up in the American south during the civil rights era, and spending much of her adult life in and around Berlin as a Jewish woman, Neiman has a keen ear for discomforts and awkwardnesses and the tics of guilt and avoidance -- Anne McElvoy * The Observer *
Ambitious and detailed... ranges from the initial reluctance of German citizens to begin the process of truth and reconciliation to small-town Mississippi, and the shooting of nine African American American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina * The Guardian *

Author Bio

Susan Neiman is an American philosopher, cultural commentator and essayist. She writes for wide-ranging international audiences on the juncture between Enlightenment moral philosophy, metaphysics and politics. Formerly a professor of philosophy at Yale University and Tel Aviv University, she is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. Her previous books, translated into many languages, include Slow Fire- Jewish Notes from Berlin, The Unity of Reason, Evil in Modern Thought, Moral Clarity- A Guide for Grown-up Idealists and Why Grow Up She currently lives in Berlin, Germany, where she is the director of the Einstein Forum.