Review by Choice Review
Zerubavel (sociology, Rutgers Univ.) presents readers with an interesting examination of the socially constructed, map-like structures by which we organize the past in our minds: a "sociomental topography of the past." His objective is to better understand how individuals and communities remember the past, how groups identify with their collective past and so constitute a collective identity. To this end, this very big little book is organized around the structures of collective social memory: how time is rendered in formal, coherent narratives; the various bridges that are built to ensure historical continuity; the power of genealogical connections to connect past to present; the importance of the social punctuation of the past into discrete periods; the use of collective origins and antiquity to ensure legitimacy. Zerubavel ranges transhistorically and transculturally for his examples in an attempt to develop an understanding of the common generic underpinnings of social memory. He concludes that such an approach allows a "complete picture of the inevitably multilayered, multifaceted social topography of the past." The text, accompanied by several diagrams that are sometimes redundant, sometimes illuminating, is richly footnoted and comes with a superb bibliography of recent work in memory studies. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. B. Osborne Queen's University at Kingston
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
