collective memory

American  

noun

1. a memory or memories shared or recollected by a group, as a community or culture.

2. any collection of memories passed from one generation to the next.

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collective memory British  

noun

1. the shared memories of a group, family, race, etc

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Example Sentences

These ties were "forged through a historical brotherhood and supported by the shared legacy of language, culture and collective memory", she is said to have told Felipe.

From BBC

And the sin here is: In not knowing more about how early immigration, migration, citizenship laws, naturalization policies work, we distort our collective memory and then start telling stories about the American dream, and everybody could come and go, and doors were flung open, and it was a land of equal opportunity.

From Slate

In your introduction, you quote Yale Law School’s Jack Balkin, reflecting upon “the use of collective memory in a constitutional argument.”

From Slate

But the potlucks of my childhood blur together into a kind of beige collective memory.

From Salon

“In a digital era, entertainment often becomes collective memory,” she wrote.

From Los Angeles Times