Guilt about the past

The six essays that make up this compelling book view the long shadow of past guilt that is a German experience as well as a global one. 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 lesson 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 he delivered at Oxford University in 2008, 'Guilt About the Past' is a reading for anyone wanting to understand how events of the past can affect a nation’s future.