Making Whole What Has Been Smashed

"History is written by the winners, it is commonly said. But heritagehistory shaped to present purposesis increasingly fashioned by the losers. Ex-colonial peoples, minorities, tribal indigenes everywhere demand reparationsatonement for the suffering of those deprived of autonomy and agency, repatriation of treasures purloined or pillaged or purchased, compensation for past injustices Among millions maltreated by history, John Torpey notes, an unseemly contest for the status of worst-victimized often ensues. Torpey's short and scintillating book, Making Whole What Has Been Smashed, explores reparation demands ranging from official apologies and admissions of wrongdoing to memorials, cash payments, health and welfare aid, and property return to groups and individuals. Chapters on post-apartheid Namibia and South Africa, on Japanese-American and Japanese-Canadian Second World War internees, and on legacies of slavery that still disable African Americans suggest his topical scope. But the book's greatest merit is its profound and lucid critique of the causes and political, legal, economic, and symbolic implications of reparation claims. Compassionate erudition, deft demolition of holier-than-thou posturing, and clarity of expression make this a minor classic reminiscent of Paul Bator's 1983 The International Trade in Art. Torpey rightly links current campaigns to redress wrongs with the broader trend, consequent on widespread public pessimism, refocusing attention from the future to the past." -- David Lowenthal * The Times Literary Supplement * "Torpey has written on reparations politics in a manner that is both informed by scholarship and usefully oriented toward influencing relevant thinking." * American Journal of Sociology * "After reading this book, I am struck with the question of to whom to give reparations for the past injustices. In a country where the victims of abuses do not live, and persons or groups who ask for reparations are not merely the descendant of the victims, is it evenhanded to give reparations? Torpey puts forth this quandary in exemplifying the case of reparations for Black Americans, Japanese-Americans and Japanese-Canadians. This analysis of trans-generational justice is one of the precious contributions of this book that all researchers of transitional justice as well as students of political science, sociology, history and philosophy must consider. His invaluable analysis of the reparations movements, drawn from an interdisciplinary perspective, calls to a wide range of readers." * International Journal on World Peace * "Anyone interested in the history, politics, sociology or philosophy of reparations should read John Torpey's brilliant analysis of global reparations politics. Torpey uses a superb blend of historical sociology and philosophy to offer his readers an informed, skeptical, yet not entirely unsympathetic look at the reparations movement." * Canadian Journal of Sociology Online * "While the reader might not share Torpeys dissatisfaction with past-oriented politics, his analytical insights into the rise of the past as an object of politics are fresh and perceptive Theorists and practitioners of past-oriented politics would be well advised to take on Torpey's challenge and ask themselves why they pursue past-oriented politics, and how these politics relate to projects of the future." * Ethics & International Affairs * "Torpeys book, both theoretical and empirical in its analysis, is unquestionably the most clear-headed work available on the several international campaigns to redress past injustices. Keenly insightful and analytical, Torpey is no polemicist favoring or opposing reparations. Rather, he is a smart social scientist who unravels the persistent human concern of reckoning with the past and righting historys wrongs." * North Carolina Historical Review * "'When

JOHN TORPEY is Presidential Professor of Sociology and History at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the Graduate Center. He is the author or coauthor of eight books, including The Three Axial Ages: Moral, Material, Mental (Rutgers University Press).

Preface to the Paperback Edition Acknowledgments Introduction 1 The Surfacing of Subterranean History 2 An Anatomy of Reparations Politics 3 Commemoration, Redress, and Reconciliation: The Cases of Japanese-Americans and Japanese-Canadians 4 Forty Acres: The Case of Reparations for Black Americans 5 Post-Colonial Reparations: Reparations Politics in Post-Apartheid Namibia and South Africa Conclusion Notes Index