The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices

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JHU Press, Oct 9, 2001 - History - 414 pages

How do nations and aggrieved parties, in the wake of heinous crimes and horrible injustices, make amends in a positive way to acknowledge wrong-doings and redefine future interactions? How does the growing practice of making restitution restore a sense of morality and enhance prospects for world peace? Where has restitution worked and where has it not?

Since the end of World War II, the victims of historical injustices and crimes against humanity have increasingly turned to restitution, financial and otherwise, as a means of remedying past suffering. In The Guilt of Nations, Elazar Barkan offers a sweeping look at the idea of restitution and its impact on the concept of human rights and the practice of both national and international politics. Through in-depth explorations of reparation demands for a wide variety of past wrongs—the Holocaust; Japanese enslavement of "comfort women" in Korea and the Philippines; the internment of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor; German art in Russian museums and Nazi gold in Swiss banks; the oppression of indigenous peoples in Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. mainland, and Hawaii; and the enduring legacy of slavery and institutional racism among African Americans—Barkan confronts the difficulties in determining victims and assigning blame in the aftermath of such events, understanding what might justly be restored through restitutions, and assessing how these morally and politically charged acknowledgments of guilt can redefine national histories and identities.

 

Contents

The Faustian German Reparation to Jews
3
American Memory Japanese Americans Remember the Camps
30
Sex Slaves Comfort Women and Japanese Guilt
46
Plunder as Justice Russian Victims and Glorious Museums
65
Nazi Gold and Swiss Solidarity A New Mechanism for Rewriting Historical Crimes?
88
Restitution in East Central Europe Deserving and Undeserving Victims
112
First Nations Renaissance Indigenous Groups and the Pluralistic Model
159
Native American Restitution Land Human Remains and Sacred Objects
169
Oceanic Models for Indigenous Groups Australian Aborigines
232
Once Were Warriors The Limits of Successful Restitution
262
Restitution for Slavery Opportunity or Fantasy?
283
Toward a Theory of Restitution
308
Notes
351
Acknowledgments
389
Index
391
Copyright

Hawaii The Other Native Americans
216

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About the author (2001)

Elazar Barkan is chair of the Cultural Studies Department and associate professor of history at Claremont Graduate University.