Nostalgia was coined as a medical term in 1688 to describe a potentially fatal case of homesickness. In 1873 nostalgia was defined as a contagious disorder with the potential to spread tragically through army induction centers, and it still appeared on the Surgeon General’s list of standard illnesses during the Second World War (Lowenthal 1985:11).

Though today nostalgia may not be classified as a pathological illness, it is still perhaps a dangerous condition. The suggestion of a better past, or a nowhere-place ‘in the good old days’ negates the realities of oppression, racism, sexism and the general unpleasantness of certain times in history. These histories and all that can be learnt from them are then replaced with an unfocussed, fuzzy need to go back there, without any knowledge of where, exactly, there is...

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