Politics and the Past: On Repairing Historical Injustices (World Social Change)

Politics and the Past offers an original, multidisciplinary exploration of the growing public controversy over reparations for historical injustices. Demonstrating that 'reparations politics' has become one of the most important features of international politics in recent years, the authors analyze why this is the case and show that reparations politics can be expected to be a major aspect of international affairs in coming years. In addition to broad theoretical and philosophical reflection, the book includes discussions of the politics of reparations in specific countries and regions, including the United States, France, Latin America, Japan, Canada, and Rwanda. The volume presents a nuanced, historically grounded, and critical perspective on the many campaigns for reparations currently afoot in a variety of contexts around the world. All readers working or teaching in the fields of transitional justice, the politics of memory, and social movements will find this book a rich and provocative contribution to this complex debate.

Bill Carroll is a professor of Sociology at the University of Victoria, where he directs the Social Justice Studies Program. His research interests are in the areas of the political economy of corporate capitalism, social movements and social justice, and critical social theory and method. Among his recent books are Remaking Media: The Struggle to Democratize Public Communication (co-authored with Bob Hackett), Challenges and Perils: Social Democracy in Neo-Liberal Times and Critical Strategies for Social Research. He has won the Canadian Sociological Association's John Porter Prize twice, for his books on the structure of corporate power in Canada. He has held visiting fellowships and appointments at the University of Amsterdam, Griffith University, Kanazawa State University, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Institute of Political Economy at Carleton University. He is a Research Associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, an associate editor of the journal Socialist Studies, and a member of Sociologists Without Borders.

Laura Hein is Professor of History at Northwestern University, USA. She is the author of Reasonable Men, Powerful Words: Political Culture and Expertise in 20th Century Japan (2004) and co-editor of Imagination Without Borders: Visual Artist Tomiyama Taeko and Social Responsibility (2010).

Charles S. Maier is The Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies at Harvard University and author of Disillusion: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany.

Ruth Phillips is at the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture, Carleton University, Canada.

Henry Rousso is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique at the Institut D'histoire du Temps Présent, Paris, France and coordinates the European Network on Contemporary History (EURHISTXX).