ABSTRACT
It has been twenty years since History as an Art of Memory was published, my wide-ranging historical inquiry into the workings of memory. Upon completing the typescript, my wife Lee and I took a vacation in Bermuda. The idea was to put a little distance between ourselves and the project. But it was not a complete escape. Most afternoons I sat in the sunshine by the sea and sketched a preface to my book. My essay was not unlike the exercise that we have been asked to undertake here. The French historian of memory Pierre Nora labelled such writing ego-histoire. Mine consisted of two parts.
