Table of Contents 

    • Introduction    3
    • A Complex and Multi-Dimensional Concept: Some Definitions    6
    • The Plan of the Book    9
  • 1    Revenge, the End of Politics; and Justice, the Beginning    12
    • Aeschylus: The Taming of Revenge by Institutions of Justice    13
    • Thucydides: The Triumph Fury in War    18
    • Cain, Joseph and Their Kin: A Saga of Restorative Justice    22
    • "Who Can Forgive Sins but God Alone?"    29
    • Interlude: Reflections on Revenge, Justice, and Forgiveness    30
  • 2    Forgiveness in Politics in Christian Tradition    33
    • Jesus - The Discoverer" of Social Forgiveness?    34
    • The Political Context of Jesus' Ministry    36
    • Forgiveness as Community Building in the New Testament    38
    • Did Christians Believe that Forgiveness Belonged in the Public Sphere?    45
    • Appearances and Disappearances of Forgiveness in the "Christian" Political Order    46
    • The Crisis for All Formulations of Forgiveness: The Enlightenment Perspective    58
  • 3    Political Ethics as Moral Memory    63
    • The Politics of Death and Life    64
    • Remembering History Morally    68
    • Can Nations Remember, Repent, and Forgive?    71
  • 4    Vengeance and Forbearance: Germans and Americans    73
    • Germans and Americans: 1914-45    74
    • Democracy at War: A Note on "Just War" Ethics, 1941-45    76
    • Vengeance versus Truth, Reparation versus Restoration, 1945-60    78
    • The United States and Germany: Forty Years after World War II    92
    • Postscript: 1995 and Beyond    116
  • 5     Enmity and Empathy: Japan and the United States    119
    • Remembering the Pacific War    121
    • Remembering Japanese Americans    155
  • 6    Justice and Forgiveness: The Long Road to Equal Citizenship for African Americans    170
    • The Oldest American Civic Injustice    171
    • An Early Civil Rights Movement: 1865    174
    • Wholly Belonging: The Civil Rights Movement, 1955-68    179
    • Black Power and Political Forgiveness?    204
    • "That Old and Still Unpaid Debt,"    210
  • 7    Whither Forgiveness in American Politics?    218
    • The Place of Apology    220
    • Restitution and Domestic Tranquillity    224
    • Forgiveness Too Soon, Too Late    225
    • Pluralism: Our Coming National Trial by Diversity    227
    • Notes    235
    • Bibliography    271
    • Name Index    277
    • Subject Index    281