Haley LeFaivre

In an example of cross-referencing memory versus history, Richard White’s Remembering Ahanagran offers an anti-memoir of his mother’s experience in immigrating to the United States. The book is broken down into a foreword, introduction, four parts w

In an example of cross-referencing memory versus history, Richard White’s Remembering Ahanagran offers an anti-memoir of his mother’s experience in immigrating to the United States. The book is broken down into a foreword, introduction, four parts with thirty-six chapters, and an epilogue. Published by University of Washington Press from Seattle and London in 1998, the book has been peer-reviewed intensively. Richard White is a well-known historian at the University of Washington who had the aid of his colleagues, Robin Stacey and George Behlmer in understanding the Irish history that White was dealing with from the memories of his mother. A large portion of this book specifically deals with the memories of Sara and his family members. With reviewing this book, there were two strengths of White’s comparison with History and memory, then his admittance to bias. The two weaknesses of White’s book would include his overly biased statements in regarding his father’s memory and the fact that there are no footnotes or works cited present in the book, thus discrediting his actual use of history.

The length of the book has a total of 303 pages, broken down into four overall parts. The book delves into the analysis of the author’s family narrative regarding his mother moving to the United States in the early 1900s. The breakdown of the book will be divided by its four parts. Part 1 involves chapters one through fifteen and describes Sara Walsh’s childhood in Ireland until she boarded the ship to America. Part 2 involves chapters sixteen through twenty explaining Sara’s assimilation in America and found her home with her estranged father in Chicago. Part 3 involves chapters twenty-one through twenty-nine which explains Sara’s teenage years growing up with her sister Nell and no longer associating with being a green horn. Part 4 involves chapters thirty through thirty-six in which the author introduces the narrative of his father meeting his mother through unusual circumstances. The author compares his mother’s memory to historical documents and gives an in-depth example of memory revealing a narrative that historical facts can prove or disprove.

One of the strengths of this book was the cross-referencing the author detailed in analyzing all the oral histories he compiled for the book. Which leads into the second strength of the book being the author’s admittance to bias, as White understands the disposition of his family and of himself, thus taking this bias into account in writing his book. Many examples of White’s cross referencing are most blatant in Sara’s description of childhood as her timeline can be a skewed when the author checks her name and birth with the documents he collected. This is probably more prevalent with childhood due to it being Sara’s earliest memories which can often be remembered as one event. Much like the event mentioned as Sara was on the boat to America and mis-remembered the events leading up to her arrival. With each example, it can be seen that White takes into account the biases of his mother, himself, and is surprised to learn that he cannot trust even his mother’s memories.

One of the weaknesses in the book goes into the overly biased remarks of the author in regarding his father’s personal narrative. At times, the author’s side notes of his father being a cruel or hard man made it distracting to read the central narrative. There is such a thing as admitting bias, but it came to the point that it was overly exercised, thus showing an over resentment towards a man that the reader has never met. The other weakness, is large in comparison with everything else in the book as the writer does not include any footnotes, biography, or works cited. Without these citations, everything that the author put into this book regarding his cross-referencing could be a lie as there is no proof that the information ever existed. With the book being a work of history, everything that the author put into the book could be a work of fiction, without these citations, thus weakening the book as a form of a historical reference in regards to analyzing memory and history.

In conclusion, the review of Richard White’s, Remembering Ahanagran had two strong strengths of admitting biases and cross-referencing all of his mother’s memory with history, but two domineering weaknesses of over bias in regards to his father’s personal narrative and the missing citations and footnotes from the book. The strengths of this book left the reader with a deeper appreciation for history and memory coinciding with telling a narrative of the past. Yet, the weaknesses lessen this book’s chances as a reference in analyzing the theories of the past because the author neglected to include any citations for his book. Overall, the book was well written as it was enjoyable to read the author’s perception of history versus memory and White truly has a way with writing words so eloquently, it made for an enjoyable read. Thus this book will receive a rating of 3.0 stars, as it was a fun read, but the lack of citations makes it less useful for reference material in regarding memory versus history.