Memorylands is an original and fascinating investigation of the nature
of heritage, memory and understandings of the past in Europe today. It
looks at how Europe has become a 'memoryland' - littered with material
reminders of the past, such as museums, heritage sites and memorials;
and at how this 'memory phenomenon' is related to the changing nature of
identities - especially European, national and cosmopolitan. In doing
so, it provides new insights into how memory and the past are being
performed and reconfigured in Europe - and with what effects.
Drawing especially, though not exclusively, on cases, concepts and
arguments from social and cultural anthropology, Memorylands argues
for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the cultural assumptions
involved in relating to the past. It theorizes the various ways in which
'materializations' of identity work and relates these to different forms
of identification within Europe. The book also addresses questions of
methodology, including discussion of historical, ethnographic,
interdisciplinary and innovative methods. Through a wide-range of
case-studies from across Europe, Sharon Macdonald argues that Europe is
home to a much greater range of ways of making the past present than is
usually realized - and a greater range of forms of 'historical
consciousness'. At the same time, however, she seeks to highlight what
she calls 'the European memory complex' - a repertoire of prevalent
patterns in forms of recollection and 'past presencing'.
The examples in Memorylands are drawn from both the margins and
metropolitan centres, from the relatively small-scale and local, the
national and the avant-garde. The book looks at pasts that are
potentially identity-disrupting - or 'difficult' - as well as those that
affirm identities or offer possibilities for transcending national
identities or articulating more cosmopolitan futures. Topics covered
include authenticity, temporalities, embodiment, commodification,
nostalgia and Ostalgie, the musealization of everyday and folk-life,
Holocaust commemoration and tourism, narratives of war, the heritage of
Islam, transnationalism, and the future of the past.
Memorylands is engagingly written and accessible to general readers as
well as offering a new synthesis for advanced researchers in memory and
heritage studies. It is essential reading for those interested in
identities, memory, material culture, Europe, tourism and heritage.
