Trouillot's Silences

To be honest, I did NOT like this book. Trouillot seems to have a very large chip on his shoulder and thus his treatment of history’s silences is what he chooses it to be. He does not treat silence in a balanced, thoughtful way, but rather bitterly focuses on silences in Haitian history. As early as the preface sets up his agenda to be the “power” that Haitians lost due to their history not being told as he would like. He states, “This book is about history and power. It deals with the many ways in which the production of historical narratives involves the uneven contribution of competing groups and individuals who have unequal access to the means for such production.” (p. xix) I don’t disagree with the connection between power and history, however his method of conveying this smacks of superiority.

By the end of the book his bitterness was firmly ensconced. In the chapter “An Unthinkable History” he states: “I was on my way to a Ph.D., and my teaching this course was barely a stopover, a way of paying the dues of guilt in this lily-white institution. She had taken my class as a mental break on her way to med school, or Harvard, or some lily-white corporation.” (p. 70) This paragraph just blew me away by its odd combination of white guilt and seemingly white hatred. He seems to ignore the fact that there are silences all throughout history, and focuses merely the ones he chooses to see.

In contrast, Townsend mentions that silences exist but does not dwell on what they are. His book focuses more on the history of history and the AHA and I don’t think that an in depth discussion of silences would have been germane to his goal.