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Irreparable Evil: An Essay in Moral and Reparatory History
What was distinctive about the evil of the transatlantic slave trade and New World slavery? In what ways can the present seek to rectify such historical wrongs, even while recognizing that they lie beyond repair? Irreparable Evil explores the legacy of slavery and its moral and political implications, offering a nuanced intervention into debates over reparations.
David Scott reconsiders the story of New World slavery in a series of interconnected essays that focus on Jamaica and the Anglophone Caribbean. Slavery, he emphasizes, involved not only scarcely imaginable brutality on a mass scale but also the irreversible devastation of the ways of life and cultural worlds from which enslaved people were uprooted. Colonial extraction shaped modern capitalism; plantation slavery enriched colonial metropoles and simultaneously impoverished their peripheries. To account for this atrocity, Scott examines moral and reparatory modes of history and criticism, probing different conceptions of evil. He reflects on the paradoxes of seeking redress for the specific moral evil of slavery, criticizing the limitations of liberal rights-based arguments for reparations that pursue reconciliation with the past. Instead, this book argues, in making the urgent demand for reparations, we must acknowledge the fundamental irreparability of a wrong of such magnitude.
David Scott reconsiders the story of New World slavery in a series of interconnected essays that focus on Jamaica and the Anglophone Caribbean. Slavery, he emphasizes, involved not only scarcely imaginable brutality on a mass scale but also the irreversible devastation of the ways of life and cultural worlds from which enslaved people were uprooted. Colonial extraction shaped modern capitalism; plantation slavery enriched colonial metropoles and simultaneously impoverished their peripheries. To account for this atrocity, Scott examines moral and reparatory modes of history and criticism, probing different conceptions of evil. He reflects on the paradoxes of seeking redress for the specific moral evil of slavery, criticizing the limitations of liberal rights-based arguments for reparations that pursue reconciliation with the past. Instead, this book argues, in making the urgent demand for reparations, we must acknowledge the fundamental irreparability of a wrong of such magnitude.
408 pages, Hardcover
Published February 20, 2024
About the author
David Scott
344 books21 followersDavid Scott was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, but grew up in a New Jersey suburb. He served for more than 12 years in the US military. His first four years were with the Marine Corps during which time he deployed to Japan, Afghanistan, and twice to Iraq. Leaving the Marines, he worked at the Internal Revenue Service while attending college. David then joined the US Army to become a Blackhawk helicopter pilot. After the Army, he worked as a software developer. When not writing, he works as a podcast editor. He lives in Tulsa, OK with his wife and two daughters.
Librarian's note: there is more than one author of this name.
Librarian's note: there is more than one author of this name.
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