You Hide That You Hate Me and I Hide That I Know

Oct 8, 2024 10:23 PM

Author:Philip Gourevitch

Philip Gourevitch's unforgettable modern classic We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families opened our eyes to the 1994 genocide of Rwanda's Tutsi minority: close to a million people murdered by their neighbours in one hundred days. Now Gourevitch brings us a staggeringly vivid and intimate exploration of how killers and survivors live together again in the same communities, grappling with seemingly impossible burdens of memory and forgetting, denial and confession, vengefulness and forgiveness.

A fiercely beautiful literary reckoning, You Hide That You Hate Me and I Hide That I Know is the culmination of twenty-five years of reporting on the aftermath of the slaughter. The book takes its title from a stark Rwandan adage that speaks to the uneasy trade-offs that reconciliation after near-annihilation demands. Since the genocide, Rwanda has engaged in the most ambitious and sweeping process of accountability ever undertaken by any society. "Truth Heals" was the slogan. But truth also wounds. And truth is always contested.

As Gourevitch returns repeatedly over the decades to the same families in one small hillside village, their accounts of killing and surviving, and of the life after, inform and enlarge one another, becoming ever more complex and more charged with significance for us all. These stories are at once as essential and as extreme as classical myths, illuminating the ways that we seek, individually and collectively, to negotiate our irreparable pasts in pursuit of a more habitable future. This deeply moving book continuously invites us - as only great writing can - to think, and to think again.

Reviews

PRAISE FOR WE WISH TO INFORM YOU THAT TOMORROW WE WILL BE KILLED WITH OUR FAMILIES:

—— -

This soul-searching, painfully lyrical book rises above its grisly subject.

—— Evening Standard

Magnificent, terrifying ... Gourevitch's account is factual, unemotional - and utterly gut-wrenching.

—— Irish Times

Philip Gourevitch has written the book which is the key to these dramatic and terrifying events ... Should be compulsory reading for all UN officials involved in peace-keeping operations and humanitarian aid, from the Secretary General on down.

—— Guardian

[It is the] sobering voice of witness that Gourevitch has vividly captured in his work.

—— Wole Soyinka , New York Times Book Review

[Gourevitch] has the mind of a scholar along with the observative capacity of a good novelist, and he writes like an angel. I think there is no limit to what we may expect from him.

—— Robert Stone

A sparkling jewel that shone no matter what angle you looked at it from.

—— Amanda Foreman

A masterful sweep through the human odyssey, from the origin of our species to the making of the modern world, that answers the ultimate mystery: what accounts for the staggering inequality in the wealth of nations today? Exquisite, eloquent and effortlessly erudite - if you liked Sapiens, you'll love this

—— Lewis Dartnell, author of Origins

Astounding in scope and insight, The Journey of Humanity provides a captivating and revelatory account of the deepest currents that have shaped human history, and the keys to the betterment of our species

—— Nouriel Roubini, author of Crisis Economics

I am in awe of Oded Galor's attempts to explain inequality today as a consequence of such profound forces. A remarkable contribution to our understanding of this mammoth dilemma

—— Jim O'Neill, author of The Growth Map

A wonderfully clear-sighted perspective on progress, past and future, which is essential to tackling today's big challenges - potentially catastrophic climate change and inequality

—— Diane Coyle, former Vice Chair of the BBC Trust, author of Cogs and Monsters

Big Science at its best ... Galor's erudition and creativity are remarkable

—— Prof. Steven N. Durlauf, University of Chicago, on Unified Growth Theory

An engaging and optimistic answer to anyone who thinks that poverty and inequality will always be with us

—— Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules – For Now

Galor's project is breathtakingly ambitious

—— Robert Solow, Nobel Laureate in Economics

A magisterial account of the evolution of human civilization from its prehistoric origins into the present day. It's a page-turner, a suspense-filled thriller full of surprises, mind-bending puzzles and profound insights

—— Glenn C. Loury, author of The Anatomy of Racial Inequality

In lucid, accessible prose, Galor ingeniously traces obscure influences over centuries ... This engrossing history reveals that subtle causes can have astounding effects

—— Publishers Weekly

A tour de force. This deeply argued book brilliantly weaves the threads of global economic history to deconstruct the rich tapestry that is the modern world

—— Dani Rodrik, author of Straight Talk on Trade

One of the hottest books of the year ahead

—— Irish Independent

Reading Oded Galor's upbeat book I...[was] taken aback by his imagination and verve... great sections of Galor's book are to be applauded... his optimism about humanity shines through

—— Observer

The Journey of Humanity is a good summary of growth theories and is an elegantly written and accessible book

—— Irish Times

Galor argues that climate policy should not be restricted to cutting carbon but should also involve "pushing hard for gender equality, access to education and the availability of contraceptives, to drive forward the decline in fertility". India will do well to heed that advice

—— New Indian Express

The Journey of Humanity stretches from the emergence of Homo sapiens to the present day, and has a lot to say about the future, too. In just over 240 pages it covers our migration out of Africa, the development of agriculture, the Industrial Revolution and the phenomenal growth of the past two centuries. It takes in population change, the climate crisis and global inequality ... There will be inevitable comparisons with Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens ... If you need an evidence-based antidote to doomscrolling, here it is ... Galor builds his case meticulously, always testing his assumptions against the evidence, and without the sense of agenda-pushing that accompanies other boosterish thinkers - the Steven Pinkers or Francis Fukuyamas of this world

—— Guardian

Incredibly wide-ranging and detailed historical and even anthropological examination of the myriad factors that have brought success and failure to nations ... Lively and learned

—— Tim Hazledine, Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of Auckland , Inerest.co.nz

An optimist's guide to the future ... Oded Galor's 'Sapiens'-like history of civilisation predicts a happy ending for humanity

—— Guardian

Enjoyable and intriguing

—— Steven Poole , Guardian

An antidote to doomscrolling

—— Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2022*

A great historical fresco

—— Le Monde

Breathtaking. A new Sapiens

—— L'Express

Ambitious and deep ... the product of genuine scholarship

—— Jason Furman, economics professor at Harvard, former advisor to Barack Obama , #1 Best Economics Book of 2022, FiveBooks.com

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