Silencing the Past

Trouillot's "Silencing the Past" is another book that I've been reading for over twenty years. Beautifully written, and with a compelling argument about how silences permeate the archive at every level and thus distort the kinds of history that can be told, Trouillot's text turned my world upside down when I first read it back in 2002. As he expertly takes us through how Columbus Day, the Alamo, and Sans Souci (the man and the palace in Haiti) find their place in history, and are (mis)remembered, or commemorated differently according to place and time, he peels back the layers of… show more.

I was blown away by this book because it spoke to my own efforts to find voices from the past that had been silenced, sometimes for centuries, by those who did not want certain stories to be told. Sometimes, the silencing was by legal suppression or even outright murder.

We’ve all heard that history is written by the winners, but how often do we think about the libraries and archives that are created by the winners, and how often the losers’ stories are kept out of these repositories? Even when scattered evidence is found, it is usually ignored, not only… show more.

Trouillot explains like no other why we need to care about how history is made.

Whatever your area of expertise or level of knowledge about Haiti, Trouillot will make you care about the country’s forgotten history. Each essay in this volume demonstrates why we remember certain aspects of the past and ignore others and how those ignored parts are so often not just forgotten but actively silenced.

I teach this book to history undergraduates and graduate students alike. They always tell me that it was one of their favorites. It’s also a book that I wished I had known when… show more.

How is it that the American and French Revolutions are discussed endlessly, but few people learn anything about the Haitian Revolution? This classic volume of essays by an anthropologist explores the many ways by which the story of the Haitian Revolution has been silenced. Trouillot explains how power shapes the recording and the telling of history, determining what is put in and, importantly, what is left out. Few books have made me think so hard about how history is produced.

Why are some stories remembered or silenced? How does power influence the production of history? Is the past really past, and what is history anyway? First published in 1995, this weaving of personal narrative with stories of slave rebellion, black Jacobins in the Haitian Revolution, and the ‘discovery’ of the Americas was an instant classic. There’s a reason so many teachers use this book in their courses – no other text tackles the questions of silence and sources in such an accessible and succinct way. It totally shaped my understanding of how history works and I’m pretty sure it’s the… show more.