Learning from the Germans

The history wars shape far more than how we remember the past. They shape the societies we bequeath to future generations. Susan Neiman's book is an important and welcome weapon in that battle

Deborah E. Lipstadt, The New York Times

Ambitious and detailed, [Neiman's book] ranges from the initial reluctance of German citizens to begin the process of truth and reconciliation to small-town Mississippi, and the shooting of nine African American American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina...[Neiman] has lived in a succession of places in which the past lies heavy on the present. And, perhaps even more crucially, she has done so with an outsider's perspective and the distance to ask difficult questions.

The Guardian

Growing up in the American south during the civil rights era, and spending much of her adult life in and around Berlin as a Jewish woman, Neiman has a keen ear for discomforts and awkwardnesses and the tics of guilt and avoidance

Anne McElvoy, The Observer

Susan Neiman relates hard truths from which others shrink. Her audacious work is a refreshing change from those, afraid to offend, who leave unsaid things that seem self-evident.

The Guardian