Cultural Amnesia: America's Future and the Crisis of Memory

(Hardback)

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According to Bertman, just as an individual needs memories to maintain a sense of personal identity, so does a nation need them in order to survive. Like Alzheimer victims, however, today's Americans are rapidly losing a consciousness of history, and with it, a sense of national identity and direction. Sixty percent of adult Americans don't know the name of the president who ordered the dropping of the first atomic bomb, 42% of college seniors can't place the Civil War in the right half-century, and 24% think Columbus discovered America in the 1500s. Meanwhile, more American teenagers can name the Three Stooges than the three branches of the federal government. Applying the metaphor of Alzheimer's disease to our national state of mind, Bertman offers a chilling prognosis for our country's future unless radical steps for recovery are taken. He offers psychological insights into the nature of memory with perspectives on the meaning and future of democracy. With compelling evidence, the book demonstrates that cultural amnesia, like Alzheimer's disease, is an insidiously progressive and debilitating illness that is eating away at America's soul. Rather than superficially blaming memory loss on a failed educational system, Bertman looks beyond the classroom to the larger social forces that conspire to alienate Americans from their past: a materialistic creed that celebrates transience and disposability, and an electronic faith that worships the present to the exclusion of all other dimensions of time.

Reviews

"Bertman pleads for more memory in our national life and for classic ways of remembering. He argues passionately and well: it is time to listen."-John Kotre Author of White Gloves: How We Create Ourselves Through Memory
"How can one book be depressing but inspiring, scholarly but readable, thoroughly researched but gripping and also make your both proud and embarrassed to be an American Cultural Amnesia: America's Futurue and the Crisis of Memory does this and more."-Richard D. Lamm Governor of Colorado 1975-1987
"Stephen Bertman's book is a provocative reminder that the "dumbing of America" is connected to our longer-term loss of a set of historical memories. Only by critically recovering our past can we--a nation of amnesiacs--build a new promise of American life, defined in both spiritual and material terms."-Bruno V. Manno Senior Fellow in Education The Annie E. Casey Foundation
"Stephen Bertman's Cultural Amnesia is an important book. It should make everyone think seriously about how we transmit the ideas, the history, and the civic values that allow us to function as a nation and a community and about the consequences of failing to do so."-Diane Ravitch Research Professor in Education New York University
"Stephen Bertman's Cultural Amnesia provides a penetrating and accurate analysis of America's unconsidered and fateful rejection of its national heritage. Citizens uneasy about the condition and the future of their society will benefit greatly from the sharply drawn and original perspective presented in this small volume."-John Howard Senior Fellow The Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society
"Students are not dumber, they just achieve at lower levels--according to our own earlier and international standards. The problem is that those who are in charge and created this mess are also in denial."-Donald P. Hayes Professor of Sociology Cornell University
"This eloquent plea for enriching our present by refusing to relinquish our past should be read by everyone engaged in the educating of the young--teachers, planners of curriculum, parents, and all those who care about the future of the Western tradition, its laws, its literature, and all the elements of the arts and culture that form our civilization's history."-Rita Kramer Author of Ed School Follies: The Miseducation of America's Teachers
Cultural Amnesia is a compelling book with the answer to many of our contemporary problems. Don't forget to read it.-Jewish World Review
"Cultural Amnesia is a compelling book with the answer to many of our contemporary problems. Don't forget to read it."-Jewish World Review

Author Bio

STEPHEN BERTMAN is Professor of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Canada's University of Windsor. He is the author of Hyperculture: The Human Cost of Speed (Praeger, 1998).