In the Memory House

Library Journal

Mansfield's collection of essays explores the nature and meaning of history. A journalist and author of Cosmopolis: Yesterday's Cities of the Future (Transaction, 1990), Mansfield investigates New England's cultural history as it is expressed in local and personal memory. He covers local history and historical societies, local heroes and native sons, town meetings, and the transformation of the natural landscape and neighborhoods. Most of the essays concern New Hampshire, but towns and villages in Massachusetts--Lowell, Leominster, Boston, and Walden Pond--are included. The essays are linked by a prolog, epilog, and prefatory pieces that seem to say that modern culture is hollow because it does not include shared, personalized memories; however, these pieces are not cohesive like the essays themselves, which are absorbing and can stand alone. A solid addition to collections in New England and American history.-- Wendy Knickerbocker, Rhode Island Coll. Lib., Providence