“The twentieth century began with Utopia and ended with nostalgia. The twenty-first century is not characterized by the search for new-ness, but by the proliferation of nostalgias,” wrote the late Russian-American philologist Svetlana Boym, who saw nostalgia as a way of escaping the strictures of rationally ordered time. She contrasted two types. One, which is healthy, she called “reflective nostalgia.” This focuses on individual, often ironic stories, tries to narrate the difference between past, present, and future. The other, more harmful type she called “restorative nostalgia.” This
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