The Art of Memory

One of Modern Library's 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the Twentieth Century!
 

How did people remember essential information before the invention of the printed page? In 1966 Frances Yates revealed the answer, which, ironically had been forgotten for centuries: A system of mnemonics that has become known as the memory palace. In this system, people deliberately associated details they wanted to remember with specific locations in a landscape or building in their mind, thus making them easier to recall. As people even today have discovered, this technique, which at first may seem complicated, turns out to be astonishingly effective, enabling practitioners to recall vast amounts of information without external aids.

In The Art of Memory Yates traces this technique of memorization from its treatment by Greek orators through its Gothic transformations in the Middle Ages to the occult forms it took in the Renaissance, and finally to its use in the seventeenth century. This book, the first to relate the art of memory to the history of culture as a whole, was revolutionary when it first appeared and continues to mesmerize readers with its lucid and revelatory insights.

 

A work of profound, groundbreaking scholarship, The Art of Memory is also remarkably engaging and readable, full of fascinating details and useful information for anyone, scholar or not, who is interested in how our memory works, how we made it work in the past, and how we might still use those insights today.