Hannah Arendt famously argued that politics are best understood as a power relationship between private and public realms. And storytelling, she argued, creates a vital bridge between these realms, a place where individual passions and shared perspectives can be contested and interwoven. In The Politics of Storytelling--revised in this 2nd edition with a new preface and design--anthropologist Michael Jackson explores and expands on Arendt's notions, bringing stories from all around the world into impressive cross-cultural analysis. Jackson retells stories from the Kuranko in Sierra Leone, the Australian Aboriginals, and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission--by refugees, renegades, and war veterans. Focusing on the violent and volatile conditions under which stories are told--or silenced--he explores the power of narrative to remake reality, enabling people to symbolically alter their relations and help reclaim an existential viability. Above all, he shows how...

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