Hatch develops a robust rhetorical theory of reconciliation and applies it to contemporary national and global efforts to redress the racialized wounds and injustices created by slavery. What emerges from this work is a profound vision for the prospects of meaningful reparation, forgiveness, and reconciliation in American race relations.

In this enlightening and insightful monograph, John B. Hatch analyzes various public discourses that have attempted to address the racialized legacy of slavery, from West Africa to the United States, and in doing so, proposes a rhetorical theory of reconciliation. Recognizing the impact both of religious traditions and modern social values on the dialogue of reconciliation, Hatch examines these influences in tandem with contemporary critical race theory. Hatch explores the social-psychological and ethical challenges of racial reconciliation in light of work by Mark McPhail, Kenneth Burke, Paul Ricoeur, and others. He then develops his own framework for understanding reconciliation_both as the recovery of a coherent ethical grammar and as a process of rhetorical interaction and hermeneutic reorientation through apology, forgiveness, reparations, symbolic healing, and related genres of reparative action. What emerges from this work is a profound vision for the prospects of meaningful redress and reconciliation in American race relations.

Chapter 1 Contents
Chapter 2 List of Tables
Chapter 3 Foreword by the Series Editor
Chapter 4 Preface
Chapter 5 Acknowledgments
Part 6 I. The Rhetoric of Race: From Racism to Reconciliation
Chapter 7 1. Introduction: THe Racial Divide and the Emergence of Reconciliation
Chapter 8 2. Recovering from Racism: An Exigence for (Theorizing) Reconciliation
Chapter 9 3. Reconciliation, Rhetorically Considered
Part 10 II. Theorizing Reconciliation
Chapter 11 4. Coming to Terms in Reconciliation
Chapter 12 5. Dialectics and (Dia)logology of Reconciliation
Chapter 13 6. Reconciliation in Time: Actions and Transformations
Part 14 III. Reconciling the Heirs of Slavery's Legacy
Chapter 15 7. Steps toward Reconciliation: From the United States to West Africa
Chapter 16 8. The Leaders' Conference on Reconciliation and Development
Chapter 17 9. There and Back Again: Taking Stock of Reconciliation's Progress
Chapter 18 10. A Prospect on Racial Reconciliation
Chapter 19 Bibliography
Chapter 20 Index
Chapter 21 About the Author