Learning from the Germans, Susan Neiman
Learning from the Germans, Susan Neiman
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Learning from the Germans
Race and the Memory of Evil

Author: Susan Neiman

Narrator: Christa Lewis

Unabridged: 20 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/27/2019


Synopsis

In the wake of white nationalist attacks, the ongoing debate over reparations, and the controversy surrounding Confederate monuments and the contested memories they evoke, Susan Neiman's Learning from the Germans delivers an urgently needed perspective on how a country can come to terms with its historical wrongdoings. Neiman is a white woman who came of age in the civil rights–era South and a Jewish woman who has spent much of her adult life in Berlin. Working from this unique perspective, she combines philosophical reflection, personal stories, and interviews with both Americans and Germans who are grappling with the evils of their own national histories.

Through discussions with Germans, including Jan Philipp Reemtsma, who created the breakthrough Crimes of the Wehrmacht exhibit, and Friedrich Schorlemmer, the East German dissident preacher, Neiman tells the story of the long and difficult path Germans have faced in their effort to atone for the crimes of the Holocaust. In the United States, she interviews James Meredith about his battle for equality in Mississippi and Bryan Stevenson about his monument to the victims of lynching, as well as lesser-known social justice activists in the South, to provide a compelling picture of the work contemporary Americans are doing to confront our violent history.

About Susan Neiman

Susan Neiman is the director of the Einstein Forum. Her books, which have been translated into many languages, include Why Grow Up?: Subversive Questions for an Infantile Age, Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists, Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy, The Unity of Reason, and Slow Fire: Jewish Notes from Berlin. She also writes cultural and political commentary for diverse media in the United States, Germany, and Great Britain. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Neiman studied philosophy at Harvard and the Free University of Berlin, and was a professor of philosophy at Yale and Tel Aviv Universities. She is the mother of three grown children, and currently lives in Berlin.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Meike on June 26, 2019

As long as there is a substantial amount of people who think that Robert E. Lee should literally remain on a pedestal, who proudly call those who fought to maintain the system of slavery "rebels" defending "state rights", and who say that the Native American genocide was "manifest destiny", it's not......more

Goodreads review by Maziyar on January 16, 2024

درس گرفتن از آلمانی ها ، کتابی ایست از سوزان نیمن ، فیلسوف و نویسنده آمریکایی. او در این کتاب به چگونگی مواجهه‌ی آلمان با گذشته‌ خونبار خود، به ویژه هولوکاست، پرداخته است. نیمن در این کتاب استدلال می‌کند که آلمان در مواجهه با گذشته‌ی خود، موفق‌تر از سایر کشورها به ویژه آمریکا بوده است. او این موفقیت......more

Goodreads review by Clif on November 13, 2019

This book contrasts Germany’s response to the Holocaust with America’s response to slavery and centuries of racial discrimination. Note that “comparative evil” (i.e. which is worse) is not being compared. Rather, “comparative redemption” is investigated by seeing what steps have been taken in both c......more

Goodreads review by Brian on November 03, 2021

Neiman has a particularly good set of vantage points for looking at our political issues of collective guilt, blame, confession, and repentance: A Jewish-American woman raised in the deep South, who has also lived in Israel, and for years has made her home in Germany, watching that nation come to te......more