Overview
"Since the end of World War II, the victims of historical injustices and crimes against humanity have increasingly turned to restitution, financial and otherwise, as a means of remedying past suffering. This study offers a sweeping look at the idea of restitution and its impact on the concept of human rights and the practise of both national and international politics. Through in-depth explorations of reparation demands for a wide variety of past wrongs - the Holocaust; Japanese enslavement of ""comfort women"" in Korea and the Philippines; the internment of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor; German art in Russian museums and Nazi gold in Swiss banks; the oppression of indigenous peoples in Australia, New Zealand, the US mainland, and Hawaii; and the enduring legacy of slavery and institutional racism among African Americans - the author confronts the difficulties in determining victims and assigning blame in the aftermath of such events, understanding what might justly be restored through restitutions, and assessing how these morally and politically charged acknowledgements of guilt can redefine national histories and identities."
Full Product Details
Author: Elazar Barkan
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Imprint: Johns Hopkins University Press
Edition: New edition
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.00cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.590kg
ISBN: 9780801868078
ISBN 10: 0801868076
Pages: 456
Publication Date: 09 October 2001
Recommended Age: From 18
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Out of Stock Indefinitely
Availability: Awaiting stock
Reviews
<p> A welcome contribution to the literature... Most works focus on one case study or possibly a handful of very similar ones, but rarely attempt comparison across a wide spectrum of historical injustices. The book's comparative framework allows us to see how seemingly different cases engage many similar issues, and how 'reciprocity' and negotiation can take myriad forms. Its clear writing style and even-handed accounts makes The Guilt of Nations an excellent book for graduate and undergraduate courses on large-scale violence. -- Ernesto Verdeja, H-Genocide, H-Net Reviews
Compensation paid by one group of people to another in the name of past wrongs is a timely topic. Whether talking about reparations made to Jewish families by Swiss banks, the package of land and fishing rights awarded to the Maori of New Zealand or the perennial and thorny problems of appalling hardship and institutional racism endured by African-Americans during the slavery era and since, the issues go beyond mere transactions of cash or title deeds to embrace issues of racism, conscience and philosophy. In today's 'compensation culture', it is easy to make the assumption that economic restitution fulfils the function of paying individuals or groups for their distress, and little else. Yet Eleazar Barkan looks beyond the material to assess the benefits that restitution has for those who are forced to pay for their historical wrongs. Sometimes the process itself of admitting guilt, especially when the collective consciousness has been one of denial - the Japanese attitude towards the Korean 'comfort women' in the Second World War, for example - has important consequences for global human rightsand international relations. The author takes a close, unsentimental look at the processes involved in determining victimhood, and assesses how nations on both sides of the restitution negotiations are redefined in terms of their global identities. Races who have suffered genocide during war - and peace; countries whose indigenous peoples have been dispossessed; ethnic groups who have been suspected of treason and interned: Barkan uses concrete examples of all of these to bring to life abstract political and philosophical questions about right, wrong, and our obligations to our countries and to the wider international community. (Kirkus UK)
Author Information
Elazar Barkan is chair of the Cultural Studies Department and associate professor of history at Claremont Graduate University.
