The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory

Los Angeles is a city which has long thrived on the continual re-creation of its own myth. In this work, Norman Klein examines the process of memory erasure in LA. Using a mixture of fact and fiction, the book takes on an "anti-tour" of downtown LA, examines life for Vietnamese immigrants in the City of Dreams, imagines Walter Benjamin as a Los Angeleno and, finally, looks at the way information technology has re-created the city, turning cyberspace into the last suburb. Norman Klein is the editor of "Fragile Moments: A History of Media-Induced Experience", and the author of "Seven Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon".