Book Review

Comparative/World

How do nations amend historical injustices in which they are implicated? The question is imbued with the urgency of recent newspaper headlines showing the proliferation of claims by various groups charging past injustices at the hands of governmental and business entities. These latest claims for restitution of wages, land, and art objects, and reparations for suffering due to genocide, slavery, and other offenses, are often made with competing versions of history vying for space in the public discourse. The increased frequency of such claims, irrespective of their legitimacy, shows that history has become, more than ever, the site for political contestation in seemingly endless battles between perpetrators and victims. Yet the dimensions of these conflicts mimic eternal duels between good and evil that are part of the human condition and often defy easy characterization and resolution.	1
The purpose of Elazar Barkan's ambitious attempt to examine the efforts of historically victimized groups in different parts of the world to exact justice from offending nations is, therefore, not simply to lay blame or even to acknowledge suffering but to espouse an international standard of morality and justice that may have wide applicability. Using a comparative approach, Barkan seeks to build a theory of restitution by identifying common approaches and analyzing the ingredients that produce success and failure among the claimants. While his subjective selection of "the most compelling cases" can be debated for what is included (three chapters on claims against the Nazis) and what is left out (Palestinian claims against Israel; the whole African continent), his premise is clear. Barkan believes that success in amending historical injustices requires a well-choreographed negotiation in which both victim and perpetrator can share in the rewriting of history and memory.	2
This possibility of a shared, negotiated history is a marked departure from the static and dichotomous historiography of a bygone era that allotted space only for "winners" and "losers." It reflects a postcolonial sensibility whose beginnings Barkan traces to the end of World War II. It is facilitated by the ultimate demise of realpolitik Cold War ideology and the emergence of international concern for human rights and social justice. Restitution campaigns also embody a rearticulation and expansion of Enlightenment principles, once reserved for individuals, into rights for minority groups, which Barkan dubs a "Neo-Enlightenment" position. Because so much is at stake, the growing agitation by different aggrieved groups to redefine themselves by altering the historical discourse through restitution and reparation claims will only intensify. But as Barkan shows in each of his twelve chapters and the book's conclusion, the debate that surrounds these claims, although painful and protracted, can play a useful and ultimately healing role in mending a nation's social fabric. For this to happen, group rights must be accorded some legitimacy, especially if group persecution was its forerunner.	3
Barkan credits the Marshall Plan, engineered by the United States to rebuild Europe after World War II, as the progenitor of modern restitution movements. Because the plan included Germany, it fostered a non-punitive attitude that allowed the defeated German nation to promote its own self-rehabilitation by its compensation of Jewish victims. This win-win model would prove to be the glue that permitted the crafting of future successful restitution agreements.	4
Such examples confirm the instructive intent in Barkan's case studies. The book is divided into two sections: one dealing with cases of restitution in the aftermath of World War II, and the second with the aftermath of colonialism. He uses these as historical markers and as source material while building a transhistorical analysis with copious analogies and lessons. It should be noted that Barkan defines "restitution" as the return of wrongly taken goods, to distinguish it from "reparation," which he defines as recompense for what cannot be returned. Once defined, however, his actual usage blurs this distinction.	. . .