Michael Kammen, Historian of U.S. Psyche

Michael Kammen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian whose scholarly aim was no less than the illumination of the collective American psyche, died on Nov. 29 in Ithaca, N.Y. He was 77. …

His work, which stood at the nexus of history, folklore, psychology and sociology, helped cast the form of the modern scholarly field known as memory studies. … If the historian’s essential task is to answer the question “What happened?” Professor Kammen sought to answer further questions: How do we as a people construct what happened? How do we remember — or misremember — it long afterward? CONT.

Margalit Fox, New York Times

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.