Memory is in the ascendancy these days. In virtually every corner of intellectual life, there is evidence of a sea change in focus, a movement towards the analysis of memory as the organizing principle of scholarly or artistic work. Whereas race, gender and social class were foci of earlier waves of scholarship, now the emphasis is on a set of issues at the intersection of cultural history, literary studies, architecture, cognitive psychology, psychoanalysis and many other disciplines besides. What they have in common is a focus on memory.