Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In this remarkably wide-ranging book Professor Lowenthal analyses the ever-changing role of the past in shaping our lives. A heritage at once nurturing and burdensome, the past allows us to make sense of the present whilst imposing powerful constraints upon the way that present develops. Some aspects of the past are celebrated, others expunged, as each generation reshapes its legacy in line with current needs. Drawing on all the arts, the humanities and the social sciences, the author uses sources as diverse as science fiction and psychoanalysis to examine how rebellion against inherited tradition has given rise to the modern cult of preservation and pervasive nostalgia. Profusely illustrated, The Past is a Foreign Country shows that although the past has ceased to be a sanction for inherited power or privilege, as a focus of personal and national identity and as a bulwark against massive and distressing change it remains as potent a force as ever in human affairs.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of illustrations
• Introduction
• Part I Wanting The Past
• 1 Reliving the past: dreams and nightmares
• 2 Benefits and burdens of the past
• 3 Ancients vs. moderns
• 4 The look of age
• Part II Knowing The Past
• 5 How we know the past
• Part III Changing The Past
• 6 Changing the past
• 7 Creative anachronism
• Bibliography and citation index
• General index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

The past reassures us and helps us to avoid mistakes. It also saps present purposes; tradition is a brake on progress. How we respond to the past, for better or worse, is the theme of this highly original, erudite survey by an American scholar based in London. We are incapable of leaving the past alone, Lowenthal maintains; nostalgia motivates youthful Elvis Presley impersonators and inspires a reverence for Art Deco. On the other hand, monuments may have only the slightest resemblance to the events or people they are meant to enshrine. Just as Lord Elgin dismantled the Parthenon, so today we uproot prehistoric relics; replicas and imitations color the aura of antiquity. A Midwestern laundromat sports a Viking warrior's face to conjure up ties to a mythic past. Over 100 photographs of buildings and objects, plus reproductions of paintings and sketches, illustrate artifacts from everyday life and history. In the Space Age, asserts Lowenthal, we're scarcely aware of the past at all, and that attitude may cancel our future. This imaginative book dislodges deeply held assumptions. February (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

In an academic career spanning seven decades, Lowenthal (emer., Univ. College London), a geographer and an environmentalist, has been active in conservation in its ecological, societal, and heritage manifestations at local, national, and global levels. His reflections on this career led to the publication of The Past Is a Foreign Country (CH, Sep'86), widely considered a magnum opus at that time. The return to this 30-year-old work is justified in the opening sentence of the current volume: "The past is everywhere." This signals his essential thesis and, to that end, Lowenthal reexamines the material form, memories, legacy, heritage, and protection of the many pasts in the many places of the world and attempts to fashion "a plausible synthesis out of heterogeneous materials." Twelve chapters are organized into four parts: "Wanting the Past," "Disputing the Past," "Knowing the Past," and "Remaking the Past." A concluding epilogue effects a critical reflection on "The Past in the Present." This fresh look at the future of the past includes a 27-page bibliography, 109 well-integrated illustrations, and 3,057 footnotes. A rich exegesis of a major scholar's life work of value to scholars in the field, policy makers, and an informed general public. Summing Up: Essential. General readers; upper-division undergraduates and above. --Brian Stuart Osborne, Queen's University at Kingston