In his multi-volume collection, Les Lieux de mémoire, Pierre Nora describes the contemporary period as having at the same time both a deficiency and surplus of memory. Surplus of memory in the sense that never before has it apparently been so easy to inscribe, store and retrieve memories of all sorts, both private and official, individual and collective. And never before have there been so many different types of archives and so many different forms of memory being stored. Also, and more important, never has there been such a demand for memories, such a determined will to remember, or such a broad consensus concerning the need for memory, the need not just for the ‘great men and women' of history but for all individuals, no matter how insignificant, to gather, record and store their memories and family histories for themselves, their families and posterity. As Nora puts it, ‘produire de l'archive est l'impératif de l'époque’.

Such a surplus of memory may not, however, be as positive a contribution to the diversification and expansion of history as it might at first appear, for even though the decentralisation and democratisation of archives might be considered a positive development, Nora fears that the storage of information has increased so prodigiously and without reason that we now suffer as much as benefit from what he calls ‘le gonflement hypertrophique de la fonction de mémoire’.