In what he characterizes as a small treatise on time, Augé (L'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris) argues that oblivion is necessary both to society and to the individual, because people must know how to forget in order to taste the full flavor of the present, of the moment, and of the expectation. They must also, he says, forget the recent past in order to find the ancient past again. Jager (literary translation, New York U.) translates Les formes de l'oubli, published in 1998 by Éditions Payot and Rivages. There is no index. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)