Germans are often accused of failing to take responsibility for Nazi crimes but what precisely
should ordinary people do differently? Indeed scholars have yet to outline viable alternatives
for how any of us should respond to terror and genocide. And because of the way they
compartmentalize everyday life our discipline-bound analyses often disguise more than they
illuminate. Written by a historian literary critic philosopher and theologian The Happy
Burden of History takes an integrative approach to the problem of responsible selfhood.
Exploring the lives and letters of ordinary and intellectual Germans who faced the ethical
challenges of the Third Reich it focuses on five typical tools for cultivating the modern
self: myths lies non-conformity irony and modeling. The authors carefully dissect the ways
in which ordinary and intellectual Germans excused their violent claims to mastery with a sense
of 'sovereign impunity.' They then recuperate the same strategies of selfhood for our
contemporary world but in ways that are self-critical and humble. The book shows how viewing
this problem from within everyday life can empower and encourage us to bear the burden of
historical responsibility and be happy doing so.
