Guilt about the Past
2007
First Published
3.90
Average Rating
154
Number of Pages
The six essays that make up this compelling book view the long shadow of past guilt as a German experience as well as a global one. International bestselling author Bernhard Schlink explores the phenomenon of guilt and how it attaches to a whole society, not just to individual perpetrators. He considers how to use the lessons of history to motivate individual moral behaviour, how to reconcile a guilt-laden past, the role of law in this process, and how the theme of guilt influences his own fiction. Based on the Weidenfeld Lectures Schlink delivered at Oxford University, Guilt about the Past is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand how events of the past can affect a nation's future, tapping into worldwide interest in the aftermath of war and how to forgive and reconcile the various legacies of the past.
Avg Rating
3.90
Number of Ratings
195
5 STARS
29%
4 STARS
37%
3 STARS
28%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
0%
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Author
Bernhard Schlink
Author · 19 books
Bernhard Schlink is a German jurist and writer. He became a judge at the Constitutional Court of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1988 and has been a professor of public law and the philosophy of law at Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany since January 2006. His career as a writer began with several detective novels with a main character named Selb—a play on the German word for "self." In 1995 he published The Reader (Der Vorleser), a partly autobiographical novel. The book became a bestseller both in Germany and the United States and was translated into 39 languages. It was the first German book to reach the number one position in the New York Times bestseller list.
