Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and History

Winner of the Pearson Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize, the inaugural Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for political writing, and the Dorothy Shoichet Prize for History from the Canadian Jewish Book Awards.

One of the most urgent issues facing the world today is how countries shape historical memory in the aftermath of calamity, making decisions that cast long shadows into the future. Combining gripping storytelling with sharp observation, Erna Paris takes us on an extraordinary journey through four continents to explore how nations reinvent themselves after cataclysmic events. She travels through the United States, with its long-buried memory of slavery; to South Africa, where the Truth and Reconciliation Commission struggles to heal the wounds left by apartheid; to Japan, France, and Germany, where the unresolved pain of Hiroshima and the Holocaust still resonate; and to the former Yugoslavia, where she exposes the cynical shaping of historical memory. Through its insightful analysis, Long Shadows compels us to question where we stand as individuals in relation to our own collective histories.