The Future of Nostalgia

ISBN: 0465007082

Author: Boym, Svetlana

Condition: Used

From an award-winning cultural theorist, the classic work on the intricate relationship between longing and belongingA remarkable book brilliant.-New York TimesCan one be nostalgic for the home one never had? Why is it that the age of globalization is accompanied by a no less global epidemic of nostalgia? Can we know what we are nostalgic for? In the seventeenth century, Swiss doctors believed that opium, leeches, and a trek through the Alps would cure nostalgia. In 1733 a Russian commander, disgusted with the debilitating homesickness rampant among his troops, buried a soldier alive as a deterrent to nostalgia.In The Future of Nostalgia, Svetlana Boym develops a comprehensive approach to this elusive ailment. Combining personal memoir, philosophical essay, and historical analysis, Boym explores the spaces of collective nostalgia that connect national biography and personal self-fashioning in the twenty-first century.