Memory

Fragments of a Modern History

Alison Winter

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Hardback

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English

Chicago University Press
16 January 2012

Psychology; Memory; History of science

Picture your twenty-first birthday. Did you have a party? If so,

do you remember who was there? Now step back: how clear are those

memories? Should we trust them to be accurate, or is there a chance that

you’re remembering incorrectly? And where have the many details you can

no longer recall gone? Are they hidden somewhere in your brain, or are

they gone forever?

Such questions have fascinated scientists for hundreds of years, and, as Alison Winter shows in Memory: Fragments of a Modern History,

the answers have changed dramatically in just the past century. Tracing

the cultural and scientific history of our understanding of memory,

Winter explores early metaphors that likened memory to a filing cabinet;

later, she shows, that cabinet was replaced by the image of a reel of

film, ever available for playback. That model, too, was eventually

superseded, replaced by the current understanding of memory as the

result of an extremely complicated, brain-wide web of cells and systems

that together assemble our pasts. Winter introduces us to innovative

scientists and sensationalistic seekers, and, drawing on evidence

ranging from scientific papers to diaries to movies, explores the way

that new understandings from the laboratory have seeped out into

psychiatrists' offices, courtrooms, and the culture at large. Along the

way, she investigates the sensational battles over the validity of

repressed memories that raged through the 1980s and shows us how changes

in technology—such as the emergence of recording devices and

computers—have again and again altered the way we conceptualize, and

even try to study, the ways we remember.

Packed with fascinating details and curious episodes from the convoluted history of memory science, Memory is a book you'll remember long after you close its cover.

By: Alison Winter
Imprint: Chicago University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 23mm, Width: 16mm, Spine: 3mm
Weight: 595g
ISBN: 9780226902586
ISBN 10: 0226902587
Pages: 312
Publication Date: 16 January 2012
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Alison Winter is associate professor of history at the University of Chicago and the author of Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Reviews for Memory: Fragments of a Modern History

Winter combines a flair for storytelling with a scrupulous attention to historical evidence, offering a history at once intellectually satisfying and, well, mesmerizing. -Publishers Weekly A captivating inquiry into a bizarre and neglected mystical phenomenon. -Kirkus Reviews