the art of memory by frances a yates

In this classic study of how people learned to retain vast stores of knowledge before the invention of the printed page, Frances A. Yates' The Art of Memory traces the art of memory 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.

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.

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.

In fact, this book has taken me in many different directions regarding memory: Loci, mnemonics, mnemotechnics, history, mysticism, magic, mathematics, Egyptology, alchemy. This book is very special because of the implications that a "art of memory" has on our history, and I believe in our future.