![]() ![]() ![]() To begin formulating an answer to these questions, I want to examine the conceptual history of deep time. ![]() This begs the question: how far back should we go? What could the historian possibly find in the murky depths of prehistory, during a period before human beings even existed? We must revisit the site of destruction, dig through the rubble, and locate an alternative past to repair the future. Azoulay calls on us to do more than look back in despair. Potential history is a political genre, and the past that it seeks to upend must be relevant to the present. If an alternative history provides resources to build a more just and sustainable future, how might we extend that insight into the deep past as well? That is the question I kept asking as I read Ariella Azoulay’s provocative new book. What might a potential prehistory have looked like? This essay is from the larger Verso roundtable, "Unlearning Imperialism: Responses to Ariella Aïsha Azoulay's Potential History. ![]()
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