Coming to terms with the past: reading and writing colonial genocide in the shadow of the Holocaust

This essay surveys the debate on the Holocaust that is located within wider histories of mass and especially colonial violence. The author asks whether the lens of post-colonial studies might offer greater mutual understanding in an often intemperate discourse. He argues that the protagonists in the debate are united by a common desire to what appears to be, from their different vantage points, the ethical demands of the Holocaust. Ultimately such a debate reveals the instability of the past and the need for scholars to accept the provisional and political nature of their narratives.