Phantoms of Remembrance
Author | : Patrick J. Geary |
Publisher | : Princeton University Press |
Total Pages | : 268 |
Release | : 1996-05-05 |
ISBN-10 | : 0691026033 |
ISBN-13 | : 9780691026039 |
Rating | : 4/5 (039 Downloads) |
Download or read book Phantoms of Remembrance written by Patrick J. Geary and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1996-05-05 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Phantoms of Remembrance, Patrick Geary makes important new inroads into the widely discussed topic of historical memory, vividly evoking the everyday lives of eleventh-century people and both their written and nonwritten ways of preserving the past. Through richly detailed descriptions of various acts of remembrance - including the naming of children and the recording of visions - the author unearths a wide range of approaches to preserving the past as it was or formulating the past that an individual or group prefers to imagine. By focusing on a turning point in medieval history, one in which an effort was made to make a cultural break with the previous centuries, Geary offers a dramatic example of specific mental and social structures that filtered the memories communicated by social elites and ordinary individuals alike.