History Lessons: A Memoir of Madness, Memory, and the Brain
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.83 (905 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1468310178 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 272 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-09-07 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Spiegel, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University)“Magnificent A searing, deeply moving work.” (Los Angeles Times)“Well-written and fascinating.” (Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW)“A splendid book that bolsters a literary memoir with the neuroscience of memory, History Lessons beautifully evokes class, race, and loss in a way utterly nique to New Orleans.” (Dan Baum, bestselling author of Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans) . “Writers such as Crais are bringing us one step closer to seeing the conscious mind within the living brain by mixing the familiar tools of memoir with neuroscience. His account of his journey
An acclaimed scholar tackles his greatest historical puzzle yethis own abused past and tortured memory Born in Louisiana to a soon-to-be absent father and an alcoholic motherwho tried to drown him in a bathtub when he was threeClifton Crais spent his childhood perched beside his mother on a too-tall bar stool, living with relatives too old or infirmed to care for him, or rambling on his own through New Orleans, a city both haunted and created by memory. Crais examines the science of memory and forgetting, from the ways in which experience shapes the developing brain to the mechanisms that cause the chronic childhood amnesiathe most common and least understood form of amnesiafrom which he suffers. Indeed, it is memoryboth elusive and essentialthat forms the center of Crais’s beautifully rendered memoir History Lessons. In an effort to restore his own, Crais brings the tools of his formal training as a historian to bear on himself and his family. Probing family lore, pushing past silences and exhuming long-buried family secrets, he arrives, ultimately, at the deepest reaches of the b
Clifton Crais is Professor of History and Director of the Institute of African Studies at Emory University, where he teaches courses on history, violence, and memory. He holds a doctorate from The Johns Hopkins University. . He is the author of five books, including Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus, with Pamela Scully. He lives in Atlanta
A compelling memoir and much more In this beautifully written memoir Clifton Crais skillfully intertwines the tools of an academic historian and advances in neuroscience with his own struggles to come to terms with his difficult and disjointed childhood.Drawing on the skills of his craft, Crais discovers that his family’s narrative of past splendor as descendants of “good, pure, French stock” living among New Orleans Creole e. Moving, thoughtful, and engrossing Amazon Customer Moving, complex, and surprisingly engrossing. This memoir explores the history of New Orleans and the history of one family's struggles while challenging all your assumptions about the reliability of memory. I very much appreciated the deeply personal account of the science of trauma, memory, and, childhood. Beautifully written.. "A Fantastic Read" according to Peter Brown. Written with elegance, this is a heartbreaking story of poverty, childhood, and a historian's quest to discover a personal past. Craig's uses his journey to clearly describe the very human neurobiology of memory making and ultimately the production of history. I could not put this book down.Peter J Brown