Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past (review)

The notion of "collective memory" is a familiar one these days, used less to measure the past than to measure current conceptions of that past. Sometimes it is seen as an impediment to getting at the elusive "truth" of history and sometimes as a means of preserving it. Time Maps is divided roughly into two parts, in which Zerubavel brings together numerous examples of how the past continues to bedevil the present and how we collude in the process. He distinguishes between "continuity" (commemoration, pedigree) and "discontinuity" (events so traumatic as to erase their antecedents or so useful, such as the European settlement of the Americas, as to warrant their being remembered in place of earlier events).

For his examples, Zerubavel draws inspiration from a compilation of data on 191 national holidays observed around the globe. He cites his sources for them, but a separate appendix would have been helpful to show the extent to which these occasions resemble each other—for instance, how they arose, how long they have existed, why they originated, and how they relate to history and/or myth. Zerubavel seems almost surprised that conspective accounts of the past favor certain periods over others (27-33), and sees a great hiatus between antiquity and fairly recent times, during which, he argues, commemoration took a holiday. This observation would probably prove illusory if one were to go beyond the few tertiary sources that he uses to adduce his examples. Zerubavel adds some examples of his own that, although only briefly adumbrated, are often interesting and topical, and he has interesting ways of expressing truisms. But his allusive style when citing examples could leave readers confused.

Many commemorations (for example, Thanksgiving and Christmas) are late arrivals imprecisely celebrating an occasion that might never have happened. Yet others (Fourth of July) maintain calendrical fidelity—unless the Declaration of Independence was actually largely signed two days sooner. The holidays in the most common category, at least in this country (Labor Day, Veterans' Day, Columbus Day, and Martin Luther King Day) have been positioned on the calendar more for convenience than for historical accuracy, in order to introduce a few more long weekends. Some discussion of these dynamics—hardly true only for this country—would have enriched the discussion, even though it might put the central tenet in jeopardy.

The new-found interest in "commemoration" is hardly new. For centuries, historians and others have looked at ways in which the past was mis/remembered to suit a continuing present, if not always through celebration per se. Inevitably then, Time Maps, like other works that highlight the "collective memory," are in part reconstructed reiterations of views that historians have long held.

In fact, although Zerubavel does not mention it, not everyone subscribes to the idea of collective memory, perhaps not being sure whether it is either collective or memory. Does widespread popular participation in such events imply that participants know why they are participating? Are there really commonly held understandings of what is being commemorated? Did the commemorated event actually happen (it matters on two levels)? How do particular collective memories arise and prevail? Are they easier to consolidate in oral or literate societies? How did the celebrations, and any memories attached to them, come to be. Most important, how are discrepant memories to be explained? Perhaps these memories do not qualify as collective—might even be counterpoints—even though they surely are a substantial majority.

As with most efforts to systematize (as a sociologist, Zerubavel sees "social memory as a generic phenomenon" [9]), the argument in Time Maps sees many consequences from few causes, and more similarity than dissimilarity. Historians are likely to find the work interesting in its compass, but might wish for more nuancing, an approach that recognizes the dynamics of the past, and a few in-depth analyses...