When the countries of the world in the West are engaged in fierce struggles with the legacy of racism and with the legacy of their colonialism, we seek to learn from the past how to manage our future. Susan Neiman's book offers an indispensable point of view, how countries and peoples can deal with their difficult past. When she compares the behavior of the United States on the one hand and Germany on the other, two countries she knows well, she discovers to her astonishment sharp and striking contrasts in the conduct of the two companies on this issue. The author, a Jew from the southern states of the United States, was a witness to the scourges of the oppression of blacks that were exposed by the pioneers of the struggle for civil rights. For many years she lived in Berlin, where she witnessed the stages of the Germans overcoming their horrific past. The author embarks on a long and arduous journey to the epicenters of racist violence and the persecution of blacks. To her astonishment, she discovers that decades of corrective laws and calls for equality have not fundamentally changed the situation. In Germany, which hosts her for the purposes of her work, she finds signs and making amends, and above all a strong desire to deal with the past. She uses all her abilities as a sharp-eyed observer and is involved in a combination of philosophical observation and historical vision for a poignant description of the struggle of the United States and Germany with a disturbing and painful history. Neiman does not limit herself to abstract discussions. It requires the details, the steps taken, the deliberations of the ordinary citizens and the external manifestations of the reflection of the perception of the past and its lessons in both countries. The shattering of the statues of the heroes of the civil war in the south is a testimony to the depth and pain of "overcoming the past".
