Guilt About the Past

by Bernhard Schlink

Overview

The six essays that make up this compelling book view the long shadow of past guilt as a German experience as well as a global one. International bestselling author Bernhard Schlink explores the phenomenon of guilt and how it attaches to a whole society, not just to individual perpetrators. He considers how to use the lessons of history to motivate individual moral behaviour, how to reconcile a guilt-laden past, the role of law in this process, and how the theme of guilt influences his own fiction.

Based on the Weidenfeld Lectures Schlink delivered at Oxford University, Guilt about the Past is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand how events of the past can affect a nation's future, tapping into worldwide interest in the aftermath of war and how to forgive and reconcile the various legacies of the past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780887849596
Publisher:	House of Anansi Press
Publication date:	04/03/2010
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	152
Product dimensions:	5.08(w) x 8.04(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Bernhard Schlink has published several works of fiction and nonfiction. His novel The Reader was an international bestseller. Bernhard Schlink divides his time between New York and Berlin.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Collective Guilt? 5

The Presence of the Past 23

Mastering the Past through Law? 43

Forgiveness and Reconciliation 67

Prudence and Corruption 89

Stories about the Past 117

Acknowledgments 141

About the Author 143

Editorial Reviews

Schlink’s essays provide a thankfully atypical view of the burden left by the years that included “the Third Reich and the Holocaust.” A specific German view comes clear, a writerly philosophy is offered and the era’s influence on contemporary life comes into focus.

The Canadian Jewish News - Norman Ravvin

Based on a series of lectures that Schlink (constitutional law, Humboldt Univ., Berlin; The Reader) delivered at Oxford University, these six essays grapple with the question of guilt, particularly collective guilt as understood in the aftermath of the Nazi genocides. Schlink brings his knowledge of both law and fiction to bear on this difficult subject. While he writes that guilt is universal and not limited to German history and national consciousness, German guilt permeates his work, although other national histories do figure in his writing, with references to Rwanda, the Stalinist USSR, and South African apartheid. Schlink's essays tackle the complexities of guilt: how the actions of individual perpetrators become another generation's guilt; the connection between past and present; fiction, literature and truth; how individuals live with and overcome past guilt; and the role of law. His legal analysis complements Ian Buruma's The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan. VERDICT Recommended for readers and researchers interested in the philosophical questions surrounding national atrocities, trauma, collective guilt, reconciliation, and the Nazi genocides.—Karen Okamoto, John Jay Coll. of Criminal Justice Lib., New York

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