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

Yet he is also an everyman through-line between two remarkable events: the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which upended world politics, and the bombing of Feb. 26, 1993, which is less indelibly burned into collective memory but stands as ominous prelude.

From New York Times

One of the great socio-economic pillars on which British identity had sat crumbled to dust as those communities, over time, fragmented and dispersed, and their old industries slipped, with each decade that passed, further into the middle-distance of collective memory.

From BBC

“With undertaking a symbolic state funeral for Sankara, Traore aims to boost his image by appealing to the collective memory of the young revolutionary leader that still shapes society in Burkina Faso,” said Mucahid Durmaz, senior analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, a global risk intelligence firm.

From Seattle Times

I had this judgment against her, and I realized it’s so fascinating how the media can give everyone a collective memory that may not really be the truth.

From Los Angeles Times

Her montage of film fragments illustrates and sometimes poetically belies the interviewees’ recollections, evoking the ambiguous and unresolved contours of collective memory.

From New York Times