Communities of Memory: On Witness, Identity, andJustice. By W. James Booth. Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press, 2006. 264p. $42.50.

W. James Booth has written a profound book about memory in relationto identity and justice in politics. On the one hand, he analyzesthe central place of memory in the constitution of identity: A senseof continuity over time, the basis and sign of personal orcollective identity, depends on memory. On the other hand, heexplores the central place of memory in doing justice: Justicerequires “a subject of attribution” who can take responsibility orbe held accountable for conduct over time, who also can rememberinjury and demand redress. But investment in the past and memory ofinjustice, Booth shows, also run against the grain of core elementsin democratic life. Partly, emphasis on the constitutive weight ofthe past seems in tension with democratic norms deriving identityfrom will or consent, not inheritance or descent. Partly, any“thick” collective identity, forged by aparticularizing past, seems in tension withdemocratic aspirations to universality, and with the globalizingreality of pluralized and hybridized attachment. Moreover, effortsto redress past injustices seem impossible to separate fromresentment, binding people to the past and its wounds. Booth's bookis important, then, because it eloquently explores the necessity andvalue—but also the costs and dangers—of memory and identity inpolitics, especially around the issue of justice. The book isprofound because it evocatively dramatizes tensions it does notresolve.