making history

historical memory in the USA

The idea of memory for America is massively problematic. It's concept of historical memory has much to do with the symbolic representation of itself as the 'New World' in contrast to the 'Old World' of Europe. In light of this, the United States has been viewed by critics and historians as possessing little history in relation to the vast timescale and history of the rest of the world. As a reaction to this 'lack of history' the last two centuries that saw the rise and subsequent global hegemony of industrial and capitalist America have had to be the main focus of cultural memory for millions of Americans.

This construction of history draws attention to a fundamentally eurocentric viewpoint as the memory and history of Native Americans, clearly present before the twentieth century, is hardly even considered. A prioritisation of memory is in further evidence when we consider the emphasis placed on the memory of the Jewish Holocaust, a notably European horror, rather than that of slavery and the African American Holocaust, a notably American horror. More on this topic can be found in the following section entitled collective memory.

For those in power to employ methods which fundamentally hand pick notions of history such as the romantic American notion of "western expansion" so often depicted in American cinema, and to leave out more unpalatable truths, such as the brutal dehumanising cruelty of slavery, have been criticized over innumerable fronts and countless arenas. Scholars and authors such as Edward Said (click here for his obituary) and Toni Morrison have written numerous essays contesting these representations of history. It is this manipulation of American collective memory that will be discussed in the next section.