Myth, Memory, and Tradition in American Culture

Michael Kammen. Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1991. In recent years Michael Kammen has been writing about memory. How do Americans remember their past? When? Why? In three previous books, he has examined memories of the American Revolution and the Constitution, and historians themselves remembering in their "selvages" and biases. A fifth book is already announced, on memory in art and literature. None of this makes reviewing Mystic Chords of Memory easier. Kammen himself warns that the book is not designed to "stand alone" but to "follow and complement" its predecessors and, presumably, to anticipate its successor. But, a book is a book, and I must treat this one alone, particularly as Kammen offers no guide to its complementarity

Art · Literature · Mysticism · Mythology · Successor cardinal · Classics · History · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis