Learning from the Germans

Susan Neiman explores how Germany has confronted its Nazi past and draws lessons for America's reckoning with slavery and racism. Part memoir, part philosophical inquiry, the book examines how nations process historical trauma and moral failure. Neiman compares German Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung (working through the past) with American approaches to Confederate monuments, reparations, and racial justice. A thought-provoking work on collective memory, moral responsibility, and the possibility of national redemption.