A classic in history and other academic genres, Michael-Rolph Trouillot stands the test of time. Silencing the Past is about history as knowledge and narrative, though it embraces the ambiguity in the two sides of historicity.

Trouillot has history listed as social process that puts people in three categories: agent, actors, and subjects. Silences enter into the historical processes at four stages: the moment of creation, the moment of fact assembly, the moment of fact retrieval, and the moment of retrospective significance.

The production of history interacts with not just academic work but also with history produced outside of the academy. History both suggests what happened and what was said to have happened. Which in turn places an empahsis on the sociohistorical process and the knowledge of that process respectively.