Author: Paul Ricoeur
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226713466
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 662
Book Description
Why do major historical events such as the Holocaust occupy the forefront of the collective consciousness, while profound moments such as the Armenian genocide, the McCarthy era, and France's role in North Africa stand distantly behind? Is it possible that history "overly remembers" some events at the expense of others? A landmark work in philosophy, Paul Ricoeur's Memory, History, Forgetting examines this reciprocal relationship between remembering and forgetting, showing how it affects both the perception of historical experience and the production of historical narrative. Memory, History, Forgetting, like its title, is divided into three major sections. Ricoeur first takes a phenomenological approach to memory and mnemonical devices. The underlying question here is how a memory of present can be of something absent, the past. The second section addresses recent work by historians by reopening the question of the nature and truth of historical knowledge. Ricoeur explores whether historians, who can write a history of memory, can truly break with all dependence on memory, including memories that resist representation. The third and final section is a profound meditation on the necessity of forgetting as a condition for the possibility of remembering, and whether there can be something like happy forgetting in parallel to happy memory. Throughout the book there are careful and close readings of the texts of Aristotle and Plato, of Descartes and Kant, and of Halbwachs and Pierre Nora. A momentous achievement in the career of one of the most significant philosophers of our age, Memory, History, Forgetting provides the crucial link between Ricoeur's Time and Narrative and Oneself as Another and his recent reflections on ethics and the problems of responsibility and representation. “His success in revealing the internal relations between recalling and forgetting, and how this dynamic becomes problematic in light of events once present but now past, will inspire academic dialogue and response but also holds great appeal to educated general readers in search of both method for and insight from considering the ethical ramifications of modern events. . . . It is indeed a master work, not only in Ricoeur’s own vita but also in contemporary European philosophy.”—Library Journal “Ricoeur writes the best kind of philosophy—critical, economical, and clear.”— New York Times Book Review
Memory, History, Forgetting
Author: Paul Ricoeur
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226713466
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 662
Book Description
Why do major historical events such as the Holocaust occupy the forefront of the collective consciousness, while profound moments such as the Armenian genocide, the McCarthy era, and France's role in North Africa stand distantly behind? Is it possible that history "overly remembers" some events at the expense of others? A landmark work in philosophy, Paul Ricoeur's Memory, History, Forgetting examines this reciprocal relationship between remembering and forgetting, showing how it affects both the perception of historical experience and the production of historical narrative. Memory, History, Forgetting, like its title, is divided into three major sections. Ricoeur first takes a phenomenological approach to memory and mnemonical devices. The underlying question here is how a memory of present can be of something absent, the past. The second section addresses recent work by historians by reopening the question of the nature and truth of historical knowledge. Ricoeur explores whether historians, who can write a history of memory, can truly break with all dependence on memory, including memories that resist representation. The third and final section is a profound meditation on the necessity of forgetting as a condition for the possibility of remembering, and whether there can be something like happy forgetting in parallel to happy memory. Throughout the book there are careful and close readings of the texts of Aristotle and Plato, of Descartes and Kant, and of Halbwachs and Pierre Nora. A momentous achievement in the career of one of the most significant philosophers of our age, Memory, History, Forgetting provides the crucial link between Ricoeur's Time and Narrative and Oneself as Another and his recent reflections on ethics and the problems of responsibility and representation. “His success in revealing the internal relations between recalling and forgetting, and how this dynamic becomes problematic in light of events once present but now past, will inspire academic dialogue and response but also holds great appeal to educated general readers in search of both method for and insight from considering the ethical ramifications of modern events. . . . It is indeed a master work, not only in Ricoeur’s own vita but also in contemporary European philosophy.”—Library Journal “Ricoeur writes the best kind of philosophy—critical, economical, and clear.”— New York Times Book Review
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226713466
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 662
Book Description
Why do major historical events such as the Holocaust occupy the forefront of the collective consciousness, while profound moments such as the Armenian genocide, the McCarthy era, and France's role in North Africa stand distantly behind? Is it possible that history "overly remembers" some events at the expense of others? A landmark work in philosophy, Paul Ricoeur's Memory, History, Forgetting examines this reciprocal relationship between remembering and forgetting, showing how it affects both the perception of historical experience and the production of historical narrative. Memory, History, Forgetting, like its title, is divided into three major sections. Ricoeur first takes a phenomenological approach to memory and mnemonical devices. The underlying question here is how a memory of present can be of something absent, the past. The second section addresses recent work by historians by reopening the question of the nature and truth of historical knowledge. Ricoeur explores whether historians, who can write a history of memory, can truly break with all dependence on memory, including memories that resist representation. The third and final section is a profound meditation on the necessity of forgetting as a condition for the possibility of remembering, and whether there can be something like happy forgetting in parallel to happy memory. Throughout the book there are careful and close readings of the texts of Aristotle and Plato, of Descartes and Kant, and of Halbwachs and Pierre Nora. A momentous achievement in the career of one of the most significant philosophers of our age, Memory, History, Forgetting provides the crucial link between Ricoeur's Time and Narrative and Oneself as Another and his recent reflections on ethics and the problems of responsibility and representation. “His success in revealing the internal relations between recalling and forgetting, and how this dynamic becomes problematic in light of events once present but now past, will inspire academic dialogue and response but also holds great appeal to educated general readers in search of both method for and insight from considering the ethical ramifications of modern events. . . . It is indeed a master work, not only in Ricoeur’s own vita but also in contemporary European philosophy.”—Library Journal “Ricoeur writes the best kind of philosophy—critical, economical, and clear.”— New York Times Book Review
In Praise of Forgetting
Author: David Rieff
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300182791
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 158
Book Description
A leading contrarian thinker explores the ethical paradox at the heart of history's wounds 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: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300182791
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 158
Book Description
A leading contrarian thinker explores the ethical paradox at the heart of history's wounds 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.
The History of Forgetting
Author: Norman M. Klein
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1844672425
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
Los Angeles is a city which has long thrived on the continual re-creation of own myth. In this extraordinary and original work, Norman Klein examines the process of memory erasure in LA. Using a provocative mixture of fact and fiction, the book takes us on an ‘anti-tour’ of downtown LA, examines life for Vietnamese immigrants in the City of Dreams, imagines Walter Benjamin as a Los Angeleno, and finally looks at the way information technology has recreated the city, turning cyberspace into the last suburb. In this new edition, Norman Klein examines new models for erasure in LA. He explores the evolution of the Latino majority, how the Pacific economy is changing the structure of urban life, the impact of collapsing infrastructure in the city, and the restructuring of those very districts that had been ‘forgotten’.
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1844672425
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
Los Angeles is a city which has long thrived on the continual re-creation of own myth. In this extraordinary and original work, Norman Klein examines the process of memory erasure in LA. Using a provocative mixture of fact and fiction, the book takes us on an ‘anti-tour’ of downtown LA, examines life for Vietnamese immigrants in the City of Dreams, imagines Walter Benjamin as a Los Angeleno, and finally looks at the way information technology has recreated the city, turning cyberspace into the last suburb. In this new edition, Norman Klein examines new models for erasure in LA. He explores the evolution of the Latino majority, how the Pacific economy is changing the structure of urban life, the impact of collapsing infrastructure in the city, and the restructuring of those very districts that had been ‘forgotten’.
Meaning and Representation in History
Author: Jörn Rüsen
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857455559
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
History has always been more than just the past. It involves a relationship between past and present, perceived, on the one hand, as a temporal chain of events and, on the other, symbolically as an interpretation that gives meaning to these events through varying cultural orientations, charging it with norms and values, hopes and fears. And it is memory that links the present to the past and therefore has to be seen as the most fundamental procedure of the human mind that constitutes history: memory and historical thinking are the door of the human mind to experience. At the same time, it transforms the past into a meaningful and sense bearing part of the present and beyond. It is these complex interrelationships that are the focus of the contributors to this volume, among them such distinguished scholars as Paul Ricoeur, Johan Galtung, Eberhard Lämmert, and James E. Young. Full of profound insights into human society pat and present it is a book that not only historians but also philosophers and social scientists should engage with.
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857455559
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
History has always been more than just the past. It involves a relationship between past and present, perceived, on the one hand, as a temporal chain of events and, on the other, symbolically as an interpretation that gives meaning to these events through varying cultural orientations, charging it with norms and values, hopes and fears. And it is memory that links the present to the past and therefore has to be seen as the most fundamental procedure of the human mind that constitutes history: memory and historical thinking are the door of the human mind to experience. At the same time, it transforms the past into a meaningful and sense bearing part of the present and beyond. It is these complex interrelationships that are the focus of the contributors to this volume, among them such distinguished scholars as Paul Ricoeur, Johan Galtung, Eberhard Lämmert, and James E. Young. Full of profound insights into human society pat and present it is a book that not only historians but also philosophers and social scientists should engage with.
The History of Forgetting
Author: Lawrence Raab
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780143115823
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 116
Book Description
A latest volume by the National Poetry Series-winning and National Book Award-finalist author of What We Don't Know About Each Other explores mysteries that are inherent in everyday deceptions, inexplicable violence, unexpected compassion, and more. Original.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780143115823
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 116
Book Description
A latest volume by the National Poetry Series-winning and National Book Award-finalist author of What We Don't Know About Each Other explores mysteries that are inherent in everyday deceptions, inexplicable violence, unexpected compassion, and more. Original.
The Ethics of Remembering and the Consequences of Forgetting
Author: Michael O'Loughlin
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442231882
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 407
Book Description
The Ethics of Remembering and the Consequences of Forgetting: Essays on Trauma, History, and Memory brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines that draw on multiple perspectives to address issues that arise at the intersection of trauma, history, and memory. Contributors include critical theorists, critical historians, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and a working artist. The authors use intergenerational trauma theory while also pushing and pulling at the edges of conventional understandings of how trauma is defined. This book respects the importance of the recuperation of memory and the creation of interstitial spaces where trauma might be voiced. The writers are consistent in showing a deep respect for the sociohistorical context of subjective formation and the political importance of recuperating dangerous memory—the kind of memory that some authorities go to great lengths to erase. The Ethics of Remembering and the Consequences of Forgetting is of interest to critical historians, critical social theorists, psychotherapists, psychosocial theorists, and to those exploring the possibilities of life as the practice of freedom.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442231882
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 407
Book Description
The Ethics of Remembering and the Consequences of Forgetting: Essays on Trauma, History, and Memory brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines that draw on multiple perspectives to address issues that arise at the intersection of trauma, history, and memory. Contributors include critical theorists, critical historians, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and a working artist. The authors use intergenerational trauma theory while also pushing and pulling at the edges of conventional understandings of how trauma is defined. This book respects the importance of the recuperation of memory and the creation of interstitial spaces where trauma might be voiced. The writers are consistent in showing a deep respect for the sociohistorical context of subjective formation and the political importance of recuperating dangerous memory—the kind of memory that some authorities go to great lengths to erase. The Ethics of Remembering and the Consequences of Forgetting is of interest to critical historians, critical social theorists, psychotherapists, psychosocial theorists, and to those exploring the possibilities of life as the practice of freedom.
Complexities and Dangers of Remembering and Forgetting in Rwanda
Author: Olivier Nyirubugara
Publisher: Sidestone Press
ISBN: 9088901104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 182
Book Description
Can a society, a culture, a country, be trapped by its own memories? The question is not easy to answer, but it would not be a bad idea to cautiously say: 'It depends'. This book is about one society - Rwanda - and its culture, traditions, identities, and memories. More specifically, it discusses some of the ways in which ethnic identities and related memories constitute a deadly trap that needs to be torn apart if mass violence is to be eradicated in that country. It looks into everyday cultural practices such as child naming and oral traditions (myths and tales, proverbs, war poetry etc.) and into political practices that govern the ways in which citizens conceptualise the past. Rwanda was engulfed in a bloody war from 1990 until 1994, the last episode of which was a genocide that claimed about a million lives amongst the Tutsi minority. This book - the first in the Memory Traps series - provides a new understanding of how a seemingly quiet society can suddenly turn into a scene of the most horrible inter-ethnic crimes. It offers an analysis of the complexities and dangers resulting from the ways in which memories are managed both at a personal level and at a collective level. The main point is that Rwandans have become hostages of their memories of the long-gone and the recent past. The book shows how these memories follow ethnic lines and lead to a state of cultural hypocrisy on the one hand, and to permanent conflict - either open and brutal, or latent and beneath the surface - on the other hand. Written from a memory studies perspective and informed by critical theory, philosophy, literature, [oral] history, and psychology, amongst others, this book deals with some controversial subjects and deconstructs some of the received ideas about the recent and the long-gone past of Rwanda. About the author: Olivier Nyirubugara is a lecturer of New Media and Online Journalism at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication (Erasmus University Rotterdam). In 2011, he completed a PhD in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam with a dissertation entitled Surfing the Past: Digital Learners in the History Class, in which he empirically explored ways in which pupils use the Web to find historical information. Nyirubugara has also been practicing journalism since 2002 and has been training and coaching journalists in mobile reporting in Africa since 2007.
Publisher: Sidestone Press
ISBN: 9088901104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 182
Book Description
Can a society, a culture, a country, be trapped by its own memories? The question is not easy to answer, but it would not be a bad idea to cautiously say: 'It depends'. This book is about one society - Rwanda - and its culture, traditions, identities, and memories. More specifically, it discusses some of the ways in which ethnic identities and related memories constitute a deadly trap that needs to be torn apart if mass violence is to be eradicated in that country. It looks into everyday cultural practices such as child naming and oral traditions (myths and tales, proverbs, war poetry etc.) and into political practices that govern the ways in which citizens conceptualise the past. Rwanda was engulfed in a bloody war from 1990 until 1994, the last episode of which was a genocide that claimed about a million lives amongst the Tutsi minority. This book - the first in the Memory Traps series - provides a new understanding of how a seemingly quiet society can suddenly turn into a scene of the most horrible inter-ethnic crimes. It offers an analysis of the complexities and dangers resulting from the ways in which memories are managed both at a personal level and at a collective level. The main point is that Rwandans have become hostages of their memories of the long-gone and the recent past. The book shows how these memories follow ethnic lines and lead to a state of cultural hypocrisy on the one hand, and to permanent conflict - either open and brutal, or latent and beneath the surface - on the other hand. Written from a memory studies perspective and informed by critical theory, philosophy, literature, [oral] history, and psychology, amongst others, this book deals with some controversial subjects and deconstructs some of the received ideas about the recent and the long-gone past of Rwanda. About the author: Olivier Nyirubugara is a lecturer of New Media and Online Journalism at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication (Erasmus University Rotterdam). In 2011, he completed a PhD in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam with a dissertation entitled Surfing the Past: Digital Learners in the History Class, in which he empirically explored ways in which pupils use the Web to find historical information. Nyirubugara has also been practicing journalism since 2002 and has been training and coaching journalists in mobile reporting in Africa since 2007.
Forgetful Remembrance
Author: Guy Beiner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019874935X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 728
Book Description
Forgetful Remembrance examines the paradoxes of what actually happens when communities persistently endeavour to forget inconvenient events. The question of how a society attempts to obscure problematic historical episodes is addressed through a detailed case study grounded in the north-eastern counties of the Irish province of Ulster, where loyalist and unionist Protestants -- and in particular Presbyterians -- repeatedly tried to repress over two centuries discomfiting recollections of participation, alongside Catholics, in a republican rebellion in 1798. By exploring a rich variety of sources, Beiner makes it possible to closely follow the dynamics of social forgetting. His particular focus on vernacular historiography, rarely noted in official histories, reveals the tensions between professed oblivion in public and more subtle rituals of remembrance that facilitated muted traditions of forgetful remembrance, which were masked by a local culture of reticence and silencing. Throughout Forgetful Remembrance, comparative references demonstrate the wider relevance of the study of social forgetting in Northern Ireland to numerous other cases where troublesome memories have been concealed behind a veil of supposed oblivion.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019874935X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 728
Book Description
Forgetful Remembrance examines the paradoxes of what actually happens when communities persistently endeavour to forget inconvenient events. The question of how a society attempts to obscure problematic historical episodes is addressed through a detailed case study grounded in the north-eastern counties of the Irish province of Ulster, where loyalist and unionist Protestants -- and in particular Presbyterians -- repeatedly tried to repress over two centuries discomfiting recollections of participation, alongside Catholics, in a republican rebellion in 1798. By exploring a rich variety of sources, Beiner makes it possible to closely follow the dynamics of social forgetting. His particular focus on vernacular historiography, rarely noted in official histories, reveals the tensions between professed oblivion in public and more subtle rituals of remembrance that facilitated muted traditions of forgetful remembrance, which were masked by a local culture of reticence and silencing. Throughout Forgetful Remembrance, comparative references demonstrate the wider relevance of the study of social forgetting in Northern Ireland to numerous other cases where troublesome memories have been concealed behind a veil of supposed oblivion.
Memory and Conflict in Lebanon
Author: Craig Larkin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136490612
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
This book examines the legacy of Lebanon’s civil war and how the population, and the youth in particular, are dealing with their national past. Drawing on extensive qualitative research and social observation, the author explores the efforts of those who wish to remember, so as not to repeat past mistakes, and those who wish to forget. In considering how the Lebanese youth are negotiating this collective memory, Larkin addresses issues of: Lebanese post-war amnesia and the gradual emergence of new memory discourses and public debates Lebanese nationalism and historical memory visual memory and mnemonic landscapes oral memory and post-war narratives war memory as an agent of ethnic conflict and a tool for reconciliation and peace-building. trans-generational trauma or postmemory. Shedding new light on trauma and the persistence of ethnic and religious hostility, this book offers a unique insight into Lebanon’s recurring communal tensions and a fresh perspective on the issue of war memory. As such, this is an essential addition to the existing literature on Lebanon and will be relevant for scholars of sociology, Middle East studies, anthropology, politics and history.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136490612
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
This book examines the legacy of Lebanon’s civil war and how the population, and the youth in particular, are dealing with their national past. Drawing on extensive qualitative research and social observation, the author explores the efforts of those who wish to remember, so as not to repeat past mistakes, and those who wish to forget. In considering how the Lebanese youth are negotiating this collective memory, Larkin addresses issues of: Lebanese post-war amnesia and the gradual emergence of new memory discourses and public debates Lebanese nationalism and historical memory visual memory and mnemonic landscapes oral memory and post-war narratives war memory as an agent of ethnic conflict and a tool for reconciliation and peace-building. trans-generational trauma or postmemory. Shedding new light on trauma and the persistence of ethnic and religious hostility, this book offers a unique insight into Lebanon’s recurring communal tensions and a fresh perspective on the issue of war memory. As such, this is an essential addition to the existing literature on Lebanon and will be relevant for scholars of sociology, Middle East studies, anthropology, politics and history.
Slavery in the North
Author: Marc Howard Ross
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812295285
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 413
Book Description
In 2002, we learned that President George Washington had eight (and, later, nine) enslaved Africans in his house while he lived in Philadelphia from 1790 to 1797. The house was only one block from Independence Hall and, though torn down in 1832, it housed the enslaved men and women Washington brought to the city as well as serving as the country's first executive office building. Intense controversy erupted over what this newly resurfaced evidence of enslaved people in Philadelphia meant for the site that was next door to the new home for the Liberty Bell. How could slavery best be remembered and memorialized in the birthplace of American freedom? For Marc Howard Ross, this conflict raised a related and troubling question: why and how did slavery in the North fade from public consciousness to such a degree that most Americans have perceived it entirely as a "Southern problem"? Although slavery was institutionalized throughout the Northern as well as the Southern colonies and early states, the existence of slavery in the North and its significance for the region's economic development has rarely received public recognition. In Slavery in the North, Ross not only asks why enslavement disappeared from the North's collective memories but also how the dramatic recovery of these memories in recent decades should be understood. Ross undertakes an exploration of the history of Northern slavery, visiting sites such as the African Burial Ground in New York, Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, the ports of Rhode Island, old mansions in Massachusetts, prestigious universities, and rediscovered burying grounds. Inviting the reader to accompany him on his own journey of discovery, Ross recounts the processes by which Northerners had collectively forgotten 250 years of human bondage and the recent—and continuing—struggles over recovering, and commemorating, what it entailed.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812295285
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 413
Book Description
In 2002, we learned that President George Washington had eight (and, later, nine) enslaved Africans in his house while he lived in Philadelphia from 1790 to 1797. The house was only one block from Independence Hall and, though torn down in 1832, it housed the enslaved men and women Washington brought to the city as well as serving as the country's first executive office building. Intense controversy erupted over what this newly resurfaced evidence of enslaved people in Philadelphia meant for the site that was next door to the new home for the Liberty Bell. How could slavery best be remembered and memorialized in the birthplace of American freedom? For Marc Howard Ross, this conflict raised a related and troubling question: why and how did slavery in the North fade from public consciousness to such a degree that most Americans have perceived it entirely as a "Southern problem"? Although slavery was institutionalized throughout the Northern as well as the Southern colonies and early states, the existence of slavery in the North and its significance for the region's economic development has rarely received public recognition. In Slavery in the North, Ross not only asks why enslavement disappeared from the North's collective memories but also how the dramatic recovery of these memories in recent decades should be understood. Ross undertakes an exploration of the history of Northern slavery, visiting sites such as the African Burial Ground in New York, Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, the ports of Rhode Island, old mansions in Massachusetts, prestigious universities, and rediscovered burying grounds. Inviting the reader to accompany him on his own journey of discovery, Ross recounts the processes by which Northerners had collectively forgotten 250 years of human bondage and the recent—and continuing—struggles over recovering, and commemorating, what it entailed.