On Nostalgia

“A powerful, thought-provoking work of philosophy and closely-argued systemic analysis. While the book is slim, Berry’s writing is thick, complex and layered, but leavened with a sly wit.” — Toronto Star

“Berry’s sentences are consistently playful and persuasive, all while conveying deep insights … On Nostalgia is a perceptive and worldly read, executed with a striking balance of inventory and storytelling.” — Quill & Quire starred review

From Mad Men to MAGA: how nostalgia came to be and why we are so eager to indulge it.

On Nostalgia is a panoramic cultural history of nostalgia, exploring how a force that started as a psychological diagnosis of soldiers fighting far from home has become a quintessentially modern condition. Drawing on everything from the modern science of memory to the romantic ideals of advertising, and traversing cultural movements from futurism to fascism to Facebook, On Nostalgia examines how the relentless search for self and overwhelming presence of mass media stokes the fires of nostalgia, making it as inescapable as it is hard to pin down.

Holding fast against the pull of the past while trying to understand what makes the fundamental impossibility of return so appealing, On Nostalgia explores what it means to remember, how the universal yearning is used by us and against us, and it considers a future where the past is more readily available and easier to lose track of than it ever has been.

Press

Read an excerpt in The Walrus

“Nostalgia becomes the ultimate reaction to the modern world” — an interview with the Edmonton Journal

Toronto Star review

Quill & Quire starred review

“It's really hard to be rational or self-critical when you're in the grips of nostalgia” — an interview with CBC’s Day 6

Nostalgia’s role in surviving the COVID-19 pandemic on Viewpoints and in the Toronto Star

Featured in Lithub’s Best New Books to Read This Summer and the Globe & Mail’s Hottest Reads