 2015 paperback edition | |
| Author | Michel-Rolph Trouillot |
|---|---|
| Subject | History |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Publisher | Beacon Press |
Publication date | 1995 |
| ISBN | 0807080535 |
Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History is a 1995 history book by Haitian historian Michel-Rolph Trouillot. The twentieth-anniversary edition features a foreword by Hazel V. Carby on the impact of Trouillot's work on postcolonial studies. Trouillot was an Anthropology and Social Sciences professor at the University of Chicago.
Silencing the Past is a meditation on the characteristics of power and how it influences the creation and recording of histories. Spanning examples from The Alamo and Christopher Columbus to the position of the Haitian Revolution in the collective memory of Western society, Trouillot analyzes conventional historical narratives to understand why certain parts of history are remembered when others are not. [1]
Trouillot's book features a brief prologue and an epilogue in addition to its five core chapters:
The book was well received upon its release, with Kenneth Maxwell calling it a "beautifully written, superior book." [2] The American Historical Review said the book was "written with clarity, wit, and style throughout," [3] and Eric R. Wolf called it "a beautifully written book" in which Trouillot "interrogates history, to ask how histories are, in fact, produced." [3]
In the twentieth-anniversary edition, the foreword by Hazel V. Carby describes the book's utility as a pedagogical tool, offering an introduction to historical analysis for students. [4] In an article for the Journal of Haitian Studies, Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall notes that Silencing the Past is regarded as Trouillot's most famous work. [5]
Silencing the Past was used as one of the bases for Raoul Peck's HBO miniseries, Exterminate All the Brutes. [6] The miniseries was released in 2021 to critical acclaim.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines was the first Haitian Emperor, and leader of the Haitian Revolution, and the first ruler of an independent Haiti under the 1805 constitution. Initially regarded as governor-general, Dessalines was later named Emperor of Haiti as Jacques I (1804–1806) by generals of the Haitian Revolutionary army and ruled in that capacity until being assassinated in 1806. He spearheaded the resistance against French massacres upon Haitians, and eventually became the architect of the 1804 Haitian Massacre against the remaining French residents of Haiti, including some supporters of the revolution. Alongside Toussaint Louverture, he has been referred to as one of the fathers of the nation of Haiti.
A labor camp or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons. Conditions at labor camps vary widely depending on the operators. Convention no. 105 of the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO), adopted internationally on 27 June 1957, abolished camps of forced labor.
Paul Eugène Magloire, nicknamed Kanson Fè, was the Haitian president from 1950 to 1956.
The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches is a 1903 work of American literature by W. E. B. Du Bois. It is a seminal work in the history of sociology and a cornerstone of African-American literature.
The Dew Breaker is a collection of linked stories by Edwidge Danticat, published in 2004. The title comes from the Haitian Creole name for a torturer during the regimes of François "Papa Doc" and Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier.
Haitian Vodou is an African diasporic religion that developed in Haiti between the 16th and 19th centuries. It arose through a process of syncretism between several traditional religions of West and Central Africa and Roman Catholicism. There is no central authority in control of the religion and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as Vodouists, Vodouisants, or Serviteurs.
The Palace of Sans-Souci, or Sans-Souci Palace, was the principal royal residence of Henry I, King of Haiti, better known as Henri Christophe. It is located in the town of Milot, approximately five kilometres (3 mi) northeast of the Citadelle Laferrière, and thirteen kilometres (8 mi) southwest of the Three Bays Protected Area. Being among the first buildings constructed in a free Haiti after the Haitian Revolution, the Palace and the neighboring Citadelle, are Haitian icons and global symbols of liberty, and were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1982.
Raoul Peck is a Haitian filmmaker of both documentary and feature films. He is known for using historical, political, and personal characters to tackle and recount societal issues and historical events. Peck was Haiti's Minister of Culture from 1996 to September 1997. His film I Am Not Your Negro (2016), about the life of James Baldwin and race relations in the United States, was nominated for an Oscar in January 2017 and won a César Award in France. Peck's HBO documentary miniseries, Exterminate All the Brutes (2021), received a Peabody Award.
Jacques-Victor Henry,Prince Royal of Haiti was the heir apparent to the throne of the Kingdom of Haiti.
Michel-Rolph Trouillot was a Haitian American academic and anthropologist. He was Professor of Anthropology and of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. He was best known for his books Open the Social Science (1990), Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995), and Global Transformations (2003), which explored the origins and application of social science in academia and its implications in the world. Trouillot has been one of the most influential thinkers of Afro-Caribbean diaspora, because he developed wide-ranging academic work centered on Caribbean issues. Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall holds that "Trouillot was one of the most original and thoughtful voices in academia. His writings influenced scholars worldwide in many fields, from anthropology to history to Caribbean studies".
Babouk is a political-themed novel by Guy Endore, a fictionalized account of the Haitian Revolution told through the eyes of its titular slave. Though virtually unknown today, Babouk has gained some notoriety among scholars for linking the slave trade with capitalism. A committed leftist and opponent of racism, Endore spent many months in Haiti researching the story that would become Babouk, and much of his findings make their way into the text, either in the form of epigraphs or explicitly noted in the text itself. Babouk is also notable for the digressions the narrator makes from the main narrative, to expound his political sympathies.
Christian-Vodou can be seen as a syncretism of different cultures and religions. Primarily focused on Haitian Vodou and Catholic Christianity, the two have been merging together in a way since around the 18th century, when a majority of Haiti was part of the Atlantic slave trade.
The 1991 Haitian coup d'état took place on 29 September 1991, when President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, elected eight months earlier in the 1990–91 Haitian general election, was deposed by the Armed Forces of Haiti. Haitian military officers, primarily Army General Raoul Cédras, Army Chief of Staff Philippe Biamby and Chief of the National Police, Michel François led the coup. Aristide was sent into exile, his life only saved by the intervention of US, French and Venezuelan diplomats. Aristide would later return to power in 1994.
Jean-Baptiste Sans-Souci was a leader of rebel slaves during the Haitian Revolution. He was assassinated by rival black rebel leader, Henri Christophe, in 1803, shortly before Haiti won its independence. Sans-Souci is notable as one of the most effective military leaders during the revolution, particularly against French forces led by Charles Leclerc in 1802 and 1803.
Historical significance is a historiographical key concept that explores and seeks to explain the selection of particular social and cultural past events for remembrance by human societies. This element of selection involved in both ascribing and analyzing historical significance is one factor in making the discipline of history distinct from the past. Historians consider knowledge of dates and events within and between specific historical periods the primary content of history, also known as "first-order knowledge" or substantive concepts. In contrast, historical significance is an example of a subject specific secondary key concept or "second-order knowledge" also known as a meta-concept, or disciplinary concept, which is typically used to help organize knowledge within a subject area, frame suitable areas of inquiry, provide the framework upon which substantive knowledge can be built, and map learner progression within a subject discipline. Specifically with regards to historical significance, the way dates and events are chosen and ascribed relative significance is not fixed and can change over time according to which criteria were used to form the judgement of significance as well as how those criteria were chosen themselves in the first place. This aspect to significance has been described as:
“a flexible relationship between us and the past”.
On April 12, 2020, at 3 AM, a structure fire broke out beneath the roof of the Royal Chapel cathedral in Milot, Haiti. By the time firefighters arrived to stop the fire from spreading, the dome of the cathedral had collapsed and the rest of the building was already badly burnt. The dome collapsed, causing the loss of everything inside the building.
Exterminate All the Brutes is an internationally co-produced documentary television miniseries revolving around colonization and genocide, directed and narrated by Raoul Peck. The series consists of four episodes and premiered in the United States on April 7, 2021, on HBO. It premiered in the United Kingdom on May 1, 2021, on Sky Documentaries. The series takes its name from Sven Lindqvist's book with the same name, on which it is partially based, a phrase which Lindqvist in turn borrowed from Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness, in which the quote "Exterminate all the brutes" appears.
Professor Jean-Joseph Lorimer Denis (1904-1957), known commonly as just Lorimer Denis, was a Haitian Indigenist ethnologist and theorist of the noirist movement. He was an associate of Haitian leader François Duvalier, with whom he founded noirism and published the Les Griots journal with from 1938 to 1940.
Exterminate All the Brutes by Sven Lindqvist is a historical and philosophical investigation of the roots of European colonialism, racism, and genocide in Africa. The book takes its title from the infamous phrase used by the character Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's 1899 Heart of Darkness.
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