Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 09:56:14 -0400
From: tburke1-AT-swarthmore.edu (Timothy Burke)
Subject: Re: _Silencing the Past_


>Anybody else out there reading Michel-Rolph Trouillot's new
>_Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History_ just now,
>about the two American revolutions of the 19th Century and how the
>story of one can deflect the story of the other? I'd enjoy a chat.
>

Yeah, I used it in a course this spring. On the whole, I'm very impressed
with it: it raises questions about the production of historical knowledge
without necessarily arguing that the knowledge produced by the historical
guild is without its particular value; it raises questions about history as
a positivist project without denying the value of empiricism. I
particularly found it a profitable read alongside David William Cohen's
-The Combing of History-: the two texts are clearly in dialogue (and
occasionally in tension) with each other.


Timothy Burke
Swarthmore College, Department of History
Swarthmore, PA 19081
610-328-8115 (w), 610-544-2504 (h)
http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/tburke1




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