In this resonant, scholarly work, Bruce Ross presents an encompassing theoretical framework and overview of autobiographical memory. Drawing on a wide range of ideas from academic psychology, the social sciences, psychoanalysis, and the humanistic disciplines, the author presents a stimulating and original perspective on this increasingly important topic. Ross' description encompasses the full range of subjective responsiveness to personal memories, both with and without awareness, including real-world social context and examples that can be compared with one's own experience; critical assessment of psychoanalytic memory concepts with a clear distinction drawn between Freud's ideas and those of his later followers; childhood memories dealt with from dual standpoints of initial origin and adult retrospection; explanations of problems and dilemmas in philosophy and the human sciences that determine both what is to be counted as a memory experience and how memories can be
validated; and the phenomena of individual memories compared with characteristics of group-determined memories and socially structured memories that persist across generations. Cognizant of the rich intellectual history of the field, the book also calls on the works of James, Titchener, Freud, Piaget, Baldwin, Janet, Bartlett, Ellis, Bergson, Bloch, Halbwachs, and Merleau-Ponty, among others, to broaden our current understanding of the experience of autobiographical memory. Students and researchers from a number of disciplines concerned with the psychology of memory, cognition, and identity will find this volume both insightful and thought-provoking.
Industry Reviews
`Bruce Ross's book represents an excellent review of psychoanalytic approaches to memory and reminds us of the problems of meaning which the student of human memory must eventually confront. ...Freud's legacy - an emphasis on the central roles of language and memory in the experience of our own selves, autobiographies, motives, and, ultimately, personal meaning - is well represented in Ross's book, which will make illuminating reading for any serious
student of human memory.'
Times Higher Education Supplement
`The strength of the book derives from Ross's scholarly ability to bring to light ideas and observations concerning autobiographical memory from sources that are little known to many contemporary psychologists, and to integrate them with the observations of more familiar figures from the past. Ross is to be commended for rounding out the historical picture ... a wide-ranging scholarly discussion of the issue that makes effective use of historical material
to inform contemporary discussion ... Ross should be commended for his concern with the ideas of the past and his ability to discuss them in the content of contemporary concerns ... a significant
contribution to scholarship on the history of ideas concerning autobiographical memory ... Ross's efforts are worthy of serious attention from students of memory and history.
'
Daniel L. Schacter, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Volume 29, October 1993
