Abridged for audio. Read by the author, Clive James.
With fascinating essays on towering figures from Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Wittgenstein, Cultural Amnesia is one of the crowning achievements in Clive James's illustrious career as a critic.
'One stupendous starburst of wild brilliance' – Simon Schama, historian and author of The Power of Art
A comprehensive survey of modern culture, Cultural Amnesia is Clive James' unique take on the places and the faces that shaped the twentieth-century. From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Wittgenstein, this varied and unfailingly absorbing book is both story and history, both public memoir and personal record – and provides an essential field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.
'Aphoristic and acutely provocative: a crash course in civilization' – J. M. Coetzee, author of Disgrace Clive James was the multi-million-copy bestselling author of more than forty books. As well as his memoirs, he has published essays, literary and television criticism, travel writing, verse and novels. As a television performer he has appeared regularly for both the BBC and ITV, most notably as writer and presenter of the Postcard series of travel documentaries. His poetry collection Sentenced to Life and his translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy were both Sunday Times top ten bestsellers, and his collections of verse were shortlisted for many prizes. In 2012 he was appointed CBE and in 2013 an Officer of the Order of Australia. He died in 2019. Clive James's take on the twentieth century.
