Cultural Memory and Western Civilization: Functions, Media, Archives - Hardcover

Assmann, Aleida

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521764378 ISBN 13: 9780521764377

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2011

Synopsis

Cultural Memory and Western Civilization This book provides an introduction to the concept of cultural memory, offering a comprehensive overview of its history, forms and functions. Full description

About this title

Review:

'Aleida Assmann brings startling originality, brilliant explanation, and conceptual rigor to the difficult and sprawling terrain of memory. This is a classic, pathbreaking work to which readers will remain long indebted.' Peter Fritzsche, University of Illinois

'This is a pathbreaking study of a category that now is commonplace in both undergraduate and graduate studies in the humanities and social sciences. Until now, there has been nothing like it available in English. It is essential reading to understand why memory has displaced class, race, and gender as the signature category of our generation.' Jay Winter, Yale University

'An unsurpassed starting point for the understanding of the human as, in Nietzsche's words, an animal who remembers.' The Times Literary Supplement

Book Description:

This book provides an introduction to the concept of cultural memory, focusing on the 'arts' of its construction, particularly various media such as writing, images, bodily practices, places and monuments. The analysis also addresses the interaction of cultural memory with individual memory and the ways in which cultural memory supports or subverts social and political identity constructions.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0521764378
• ISBN 13: 9780521764377
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 422