Tag: historical memory
What is a Nation, Anyway?
Proper forgetting depends on the idea of a nation itself. For Renan, “a nation is a soul, a spiritual principle” built on two things, the past and the present.
Perspectives of History: Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High...
Turmoil is present throughout Dick’s world, and this is clearly reflected in each of the three characters discussed here. Tagomi, Wegner, and Childan’s lives are greatly influenced by events precipitated by others, and each responds in a different manner.
Should We Read the Words of the Unsavory Dead?
Alan Jacobs is right that if we would receive a blessing from the dead, we will have to wrestle with them.
Turning Heritage into History
Disenthralling ourselves from the past is an American tradition, and gaining a clear-eyed vision of the flaws and achievements of previous generations is itself part of our heritage.
Culture and the Front Porch
What is culture? What hath attachment to do with culture? Why are front porches necessary for culture?
Culture is something...
Notre Dame and the Need for the Past
We know now that much of the Notre Dame Cathedral survived and that it will be rebuilt. But while the fire at the Notre...
The American Bookstore: A List
Go here to read the first part of this two-part essay on the American Bookstore.
Several hours before a home game at the University of Michigan, the owner of a bookstore on...
The American Bookstore: Prologue
Some months ago I stood in a basement bookstore in suburban Maryland and pondered a relic of the 1960s, an artifact of dubious worth...
Iris Chang and the Delicate Art of Remembering
A proper remembering requires more than telling the facts or chronicling the plunder, rape, murder in Nanking; it requires that one explain the event.
A Product of Speed
Nostalgia is, therefore, an index of alienation, communal decrepitude, and, at high levels, cultural patricide.