The Edge Of Memory

In today's society it is generally the written word that holds the  authority. We are more likely to trust the words found in a history  textbook over the version of history retold by a friend - after all,  human memory is unreliable, and how can you be sure your friend hasn't  embellished the facts? But before humans were writing down their  knowledge, they were telling it to each other in the form of stories.   The Edge of Memory  celebrates the predecessor of written information - the spoken word,  tales from our ancestors that have been passed down, transmitting  knowledge from one generation to the next. Among the most extensive and  best-analysed of these stories are from native Australian cultures.  These stories conveyed both practical information and recorded history,  describing a lost landscape, often featuring tales of flooding and  submergence. These folk traditions are increasingly supported by hard  science. Geologists are starting to corroborate the tales through study  of climatic data, sediments and land forms; the evidence was there in  the stories, but until recently, nobody was listening.  In this  book, Patrick Nunn unravels the importance of these tales, exploring the  science behind folk history from various places - including northwest  Europe and India - and what it can tell us about environmental  phenomena, from coastal drowning to volcanic eruptions. These stories of  real events were passed across the generations, and over thousands of  years, and they have broad implications for our understanding of how  human societies have developed through the millennia, and ultimately how  we respond collectively to changes in climate, our surroundings and the  environment we live in.