navigation box Reading List
           (see more books at my main book page)
(need to include books dealing with the common philosophical synonymns of "memory" such as "representation")
 
Mind and Brain : A Theory of Determinism by Ted Honderich

Neuroscience, Memory, and Language, edited by Richard D. Broadwell, is Volume 1 in the Decade of the Brain series.

Memory : From Mind to Molecules (Scientific American Library, No 69) by Larry R. Squire, Eric R. Kandel

Transient Attractors and Emergent Attractor Memory  Chris Lucas

Mind and Variability : Mental Darwinism, Memory, and Self (Human Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence) by Patrick McNamara

History As an Art of Memory  by Patrick H. Hutton

History & Memory focuses on questions relating to the formation of historical consciousness. Historical consciousness is defined here as the area in which collective memory, the writing of history, and other modes of shaping images of the past in the public mind merge. The journal deals with both theoretical problems and empirical inquiries, and aims to stimulate conceptual clarifications without overdefining or restricting approaches.

The Art of Memory
                                Yates does an admirable job of researching this art. She begins, as many before
                             her, with the tale of Simonides and his invention of the loci method of mnemonics.
                             She also captures the scope and breadth of an art which traditionally formed part of
                             the liberal studies of any educated westerner, be he Greek, Roman, or German.
                             Yates leads the book towards a more occult vein when she studies Bruno and some
                             of the medieval contributors to this practice. In the book's most interesting
                             moments, she suggests that the Renaissance thinkers' search through the ancient
                             memory treatises directly led to the search for method that Descartes, Bacon, et al.
                             ruminated upon to create the modern foundations of science. Though this is a
                             well-researched, and at times interesting book, the read goes slowly. Many of the
                             themes and ideas appear in an overly repetitive fashion. Further, it is not a 'how to'
                             book but a book on the history of an idea; one will know little about the
                             improvement of memory and all the claims of the ages appear to be tricks at best.
                             The spectacular memories of a few individuals seem less associated with a method
                             and more a function of physiology. Whether or not this ars memoria should be
                             reinstated seems questionable even after this long essay. Worth a read if you have
                             the time and interest; can lead one on a thought-provoking journey with patient
                             reflection.
 

Committed to Memory : How We Remember and Why We Forget
by Rebecca Rupp

"Committed to Memory" is pop-science at its best: educational and entertaining.
Not just some pseudo-scientific re-hash of ancient mnemonics like "Mega
Memory" and so many other memory books out there; this book also preents the
latest in legitimate scientific research on how memory works. Reading it provides
one of those rare "a-ha" experiences; we are given explanations for facets of
memory we all notice, but have seldom taken much time to ponder.

Deserves to be a best seller."
 
 
The Anatomy of Memory : An Anthology  by James McConkey (Editor)
"Memory is the essential element of human consciousness, the key to our
personality, and the linchpin of our sense of identity. In Anatomy of Memory,
James McConkey has assembled a rich selection of writings that illuminates the
nature of memory and the varied roles it plays in our lives. Contributors include
Marianne Moore, St. Augustine, Lewis Thomas, W.B. Yeats, and Annie Dillard."
 
Book of Memory; A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture by Mary J. Carruthers
  "New insights into the role of memory in the medieval world are revealed in this
wide-ranging study that draws on a range of examples from Dante, Chaucer, and
Aquinas to the symbolism of illuminated manuscripts."
 

The Art of Memory
 
 
 

"Malcolm, Norman"

Origins of the Modern Mind by Merlin Donald
This bold and brilliant book asks the ultimate question of life sciences: How did the
human mind acquire its incomparable power? Origins of the Modern Mind traces the
evolution of human culture and cognition from primitive apes to the era of artificial
intelligence, and presents an original theory of how the human mind evolved from
its presymbolic form. Illustrated with line drawings.
 
 The Persistence of Memory : Organism, Myth, Text
                           by Philip Kuberski

 "Seen at a certain moment, or in a certain light, things familiar and unfamiliar - a subway entrance, a classical ruin, a constellation, a map - can evoke powerful feelings. Are these feelings an effect of memory, the unconscious, the body? To answer that question, Philip Kuberski leads us on a brave and beguiling exploration of memory, uncovering the many associations that join our physical bodies, personal and cultural myths, and aesthetic and literary experiences. Our very existence as individuals depends on the faculty of memory, to recall or maintain all that we are and offer an ever-changing prelude to all that we will become. But is memory our own, a kind of personal data base, or is it a worldly process in which we are all participants? Drawing on an expansive array of sources, from microbiology to cosmology, from Ovid to Proust, from Egyptology to cinema, Kuberski shows us a web of associations in which we both remember and are remembered. His lucid essays search out the echoes of antiquity within our daily experience, the correspondences between the unconscious and myth, the linkages between the stars and conceptions of the self, and the ways in which aesthetic forms are related to organic patterns. Memory, far from being a passive agency of recollection, can be understood as an integrating, endlessly fascinating relationship. The Persistence of Memory provides a thoughtful and tantalizing read for those interested in literature, psychology, biology, anthropology, and philosophy. "


The Time of Memory (Suny Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy)
                           by Charles E. Scott
 "The Time of Memory places emphasis on nonvoluntary memory and the mythology of memory in the context of questions that are prominent in contemporary thought. How do memories form experiences of origin and identity? How might we describe the functions of memory in thought or knowledge? Are there memories without images? How do past times become present? The book also addresses the force of mutation in the formation of memories as well as the roles of memories in experiences of ecstasy, sublimity, continuity, and discontinuity. The book engages Aristotle, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, and Heidegger, as well as such mythological figures as Mnemosyne, Lethe, Dionysus, and Apollo."


Philosophy and Memory Traces : Descartes to Connectionism
                           by John Sutton
 "Porous Memory defends two theories of autobiographical memory. One is a bewildering historical view of memories as dynamic patterns in fleeting animal spirits, nervous fluids which rummaged through the pores of brain and body. The other is new connectionism, in which memories are 'stored' only superpositionally, and reconstructed rather than reproduced. John Sutton juxtaposes historical and contemporary debates to show that psychology can attend to culture, complexity, self, and history."

Neil Manson, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
 "PHILOSOPHY AND MEMORY TRACES unearths a 'lost' historical background to contemporary parallel distributed processing models of information processing. It provides a fascinating insight into early modern theories of memory and neural activity, and anyone interested in contemporary thinking about mind and memory, or in the history of psychology and philosophy, will find a great deal of value in this engaging and stimulating book." 



 
 

 Remembering : A Phenomenological Study (Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy)
                           by Edward S. Casey

Cognitive Models of Memory (Studies in Cognition Series)
                           by Martin A. Conway (Editor)

Human Memory : A Multimodal Approach
                                     by Johannes Engelkamp, Hubert D. Zimmer

Images of Memory : On Remembering and Representation
                           by Susanne Kuchler, Walter Melion (Editor)

Representation of Meaning in Memory
                           by W. Kintsch


Asimov's Guide to the Bible : The Old and New Testaments/Two Volumes in One by Isaac Asimov, Rafael Palacios (Illustrator)



MEDITERRANEAN PEOPLES IN TRANSITION: Thirteenth to Early Tenth Centuries
BCE. Eds. Seymour Gitin, Amihai Mazar and Ephraim Stern. Israel
Exploration Society, Jerusalem 1998 (27 x 21 cm., 504 pp., hardcover,
ISBN 965-221-036-6)
contains articles on "sea people" (source)


White Gloves; How We Create Ourselves Through Memory  by John Kotre
Amazon Reader Comment:
DrTBob@aol.com from New York, NY , August 24, 1997
Eloquent evocation of memory and its tasks, embedded in life  As the discipline of psychology struggles to emerge from its artifice-inducingdecades of behaviorism, memory  research does much of the heavy lifting-- uniting laboratory rigor, theoretical sophistication, and humane   concerns with "qualitative" field work (that is, talking to real people in ordinary ways). "White Gloves" presents  the state of the art quite well, in a literate, well-crafted style that sounds like one very smart and wise person  talking to others. The book sets current work on memory in the context of the author's life, and the lives of   many famous (and less famous) characters from the professional literature.   For those who want an academic tone to their books on current science, this is the wrong book--try Daniel   Schacter's "Searching for Memory." For those who find the close logic of (even the best) academic writing  trying, but who would like to know the state of the art, "White Gloves" is a fine, moving choice.

Brain Waves Through Time : 12 Principles for Understanding the Evolution of the Human Brain and Man's Behavior
                           by Robert T. Demoss

The Descent of Mind : Psychological Perspectives of Hominid Evolution
                           by Michael C. Corballis (Editor), Stephen E.G. Lea (Editor)



How the Brain Talks to Itself : A Clinical Primer of Psychotherapeutic Neuroscience (Advances in Psychology and Mental Health)  by Jay Harris

Mind and Variability : Mental Darwinism, Memory, and Self (Human Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence)
                           by Patrick McNamara
Book Description
                           Mental Darwinism, a new approach to the study of mental phenomena,applies
                           selectionist ideas to problems of mind and behavior. McNamara challenges the
                           instructivist view that memories occur when information from the environment is
                           transferred into the mind. Current experimental evidence confirms the insights of two
                           turn-of-the-century philosophers, William James and Henri Bergson, who originally
                           proposed applying Darwinian principles to mental processes. The view of the mind
                           that emerges from this approach helps us understand why memory evolves as it does
                           and is not always accurate or veridical, how memory is related to personal identity,
                           and how a large number of neuropsychological disorders develop. 

The Prehistory of the Mind : The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science
                           by Steven Mithen
Book Description
                           Here is an exhilarating intellectual performance, in the tradition of Roger Penrose's
                           The Emperor's New Mind and Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. On the way to
                           showing how the world of our ancient ancestors shaped our modern modular mind,
                           Steven Mithen shares one provocative insight after another as he answers a series of
                           fascinating questions: Were our brains hard-wired in the Pleistocene Era by the needs
                           of hunter-gatherers? When did religious beliefs first emerge? Why were the first
                           paintings made by humankind so technically accomplished and expressive? What can
                           the sexual habits of chimpanzees tell us about the prehistory of the modern mind?
                           This is the first archaeological account to support the new modular concept of the
                           mind. The concept, promulgated by cognitive and evolutionary psychologists, views
                           the mind as a collection of specialized intelligences or "cognitive domains,"
                           somewhat like a Swiss army knife with its specialized blades and tools. Arguing that
                           only archaeology can answer many of the key questions raised by the new concept,
                           Mithen delineates a three-phase sequence for the mind's evolution over six million
                           years--from early Homo in Africa to the ice-age Neanderthals to our modern modular
                           minds. Here is an intriguing and challenging explanation of what it means to be
                           human, a bold new theory about the origins and nature of the mind. 

The Biology of Mind : Origins and Structures of Mind, Brain, and Consciousness
                           by M. Deric Bownds
There are many roads to understanding our minds, many different
                           windows through which we must peer. We approach the target from different
                           directions when we take up the perspectives provided by neurobiology, cognitive
                           psychology, animal behavior, linguistics, and evolutionary biology. We need to
                           consider successive glimpses of different aspects of "mind." There are many ways to
                           model ourselves, multiple versions of "this is I." We can utilize information on how
                           our nervous systems evolved over millions of years, as well as high-technology
                           gadgets designed to peer inside our brains as they work. This book tries to mix these
                           two approaches---to assemble a description of our minds as a vast collective of agents
                           that interact to construct an unconscious background out of which a narrative "I"
                           emerges. You may well discover that the new ideas we suggest change your
                           everyday perceptions and actions.