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152 of 156 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If "revelatory" weren't such a big word, I'd use it!, July 9, 2000
A book about memory? Mnemonics, eh? Dull stuff... WRONG!!! This is just about the most engrossing scholarly work I have ever read. Quite apart from displaying a masterly grasp of her subject, which is far more interesting than I would have believed before reading the book, Yates throws fascinating light on a number of seemingly unrelated topics: the Roman art of rhetoric, the architecture of the Globe theatre, the foundations of Renaissance syncretism, the rise of the scientific method, the delightful irony of a patron saint of science turning out to be an arch-magician, psychological aspects of imagination... -- the list is a long one. However, for me, it is Yates' illumination of the profound relationship between the scientific method and earlier attempts at mastering the universe by magical means, that stands out as a single, most important aspect of the book. In fact, I would go as far as to say that no study of history and/or philosophy of science can be complete without acknowledging and exploring the relevant insights of "The Art of memory". If you have any interest in human attempts to comprehend and control the universe, a well-thumbed copy of this book should be on your bookshelf!
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60 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent exploration of a forgotten art, September 12, 2002
This review is from: The Art of Memory (Paperback)
If you are fascinated by history or by scholarship throughout recorded time, you should enjoy this book. Francis Yates has created a detailed examination of memory techniques and their evolution over the course of generations. Beginning in ancient Greece and continuing through the Middle Ages, Yates shows how the art of remembering began as a sort of parlor trick and developed into an important skill in both religion and the occult. The influence from both individuals and cultures is described in a scholarly (yet not annoyingly so) way. While this book is not for everyone, its intended audience should be delighted. NOTE: This book is not a "how-to" manual for memory. It provides only a very general description of memory methods and is instead an exploration of the history of the art. An excellent companion piece to this book is _The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci_. Both books were listed in the acknowledgements of Thomas Harris' _Hannibal_.
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56 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
intellectual history as it should be written, December 24, 1999
In this era of gigabytes and floppy disks, it is easy to forget that once upon a time we had to commit things to memory. Yates does a wonderful job of recovering the ``art of memory,'' a complex and fascinating set of techniques that were in common use for thousands of years. Orators would construct elaborate conceptual ``memory palaces'' and use them to memorize speeches of staggering length. Well-written and erudite, Yates' book is the best work I know of on this subject. She treats ancient GReek times and the medieval era with equal ease. For further reading on the subject, try Spence's _The MEmory PAlace of MAtteo Ricci_ or Carruthers' _The Book of Memory_.
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