Bridge Across Broken Time Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory [Paperback]

In this remarkable book, Vera Schwarcz explores the meanings of cultural memory within the two longest surviving civilizations on earth. The author of previous books that theNew York Times Book Reviewcalled moving and Jonathan Spence termed subtle, elegiac, and elegant, Schwarcz finds a bridge between the vastly different Chinese and Jewish traditions in the fierce commitment to historical memory they share. For both, a chain of remembrance has allowed tradition to endure uninterrupted from ancient times to the present; for both, the transmission of remembrance and the bearing of active witness to the significance of the past are high moral values. From her unique standpoint as China scholar and daughter of survivors of the Holocaust, Schwarcz uncovers resonances between the narratives of Chinese intellectuals recovering from the trauma of the Cultural Revolution and the halting tales of her own parents.
Focusing on the transmission of cultural memory in these two cultures, the author examines how metaphor becomes an aid to memory, the role of personal remembrance in public commemorations, and the process of healing historical wounds. Combining poetry and historiography, oral interviews and archival documents, this book brings to life the struggles of Chinese and Jewish survivors who managed to cultivate memory through inimical times and preserve the continuity of their long traditions.

Vera Schwarczis Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University. She is the author of seven books and over fifty articles on Chinese intellectual history and comparative memory studies, includingTime for Telling Truth Is Running Out: Conversations with Zhang Shenfu, published by Yale University Press.