The Tower of the Past in Polybius, Bede, and Fanon

Abstract

Frantz Fanon uses the metaphor of the Tower of the Past in his conclusion to Peau noire, masques blancs (Black Skin, White Masks) to argue that racialized historical narratives alienate and imprison their readers. In the first part of this article I read excerpts from Polybius and Bede to isolate the metaphors that both authors use to describe and explain the phenomenon of empire and its impact on historical understanding. In the second part I return to Fanon, and particularly his discussion of the phrase "Our ancestors, the Gauls," to trace his critique of discourses of ancient history in the context of French colonialism.