LEADER 02766cam a2200337Ii 4500001    250499
005    20240621230008.0
008    160504s2016    ctu           000 0 eng d
010      2015954282
020    0300182791 |q(cloth : alkaline paper)
020    9780300182798 |q(cloth : alkaline paper)
035    (OCoLC)ocn920017514
035    250499
049    LHMA
040    YDXCP |beng |erda |cYDXCP |dBTCTA |dBDX |dERASA |dOCLCQ |dNLE |dOCLCO |dDKC |dTWC |dGZM |dLHM
090    D16.9 |b.R54 2016
100 1  Rieff, David, |eauthor.
245 10 In praise of forgetting : |bhistorical memory and its ironies / |cDavid Rieff.
264  1 New Haven : |bYale University Press, |c[2016]
264  4  |c©2016
300    x, 145 pages ; |c22 cm
336    text |btxt |2rdacontent
337    unmediated |bn |2rdamedia
338    volume |bnc |2rdacarrier
505 0  Footprints in the sands of time, and all that -- Must we deform the past in order to preserve it? -- What is collective memory actually good for? -- The victory of memory over history -- Forgiveness and forgetting -- The memory of wounds and other safe harbors -- Amor fati -- Against remembrance.
520    "The conventional wisdom about historical memory is summed up in George Santayana's celebrated phrase, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Today, the consensus that it is moral to remember, immoral to forget, is nearly absolute. And yet is this right?  David Rieff, an independent writer who has reported on bloody conflicts in Africa, the Balkans, and Central Asia, insists that things are not so simple. He poses hard questions about whether remembrance ever truly has, or indeed ever could, "inoculate" the present against repeating the crimes of the past. He argues that rubbing raw historical wounds-whether self-inflicted or imposed by outside forces-neither remedies injustice nor confers reconciliation. If he is right, then historical memory is not a moral imperative but rather a moral option-sometimes called for, sometimes not. Collective remembrance can be toxic. Sometimes, Rieff concludes, it may be more moral to forget. Ranging widely across some of the defining conflicts of modern times-the Irish Troubles and the Easter Uprising of 1916, the white settlement of Australia, the American Civil War, the Balkan wars, the Holocaust, and 9/11-Rieff presents a pellucid examination of the uses and abuses of historical memory. His contentious, brilliant, and elegant essay is an indispensable work of moral philosophy." -- publisher
591    Record updated by Marcive processing 21 June 2024
650  0 Collective memory |xPhilosophy.
650  0 History |xPhilosophy.
650  0 Ethics.
852 0   |bstacks |hD16.9 |i.R54 2016