Chris Deacy shows how nostalgia is not so much an attempt to retreat to the past as an effort to find hope for the future, out of the shared resources of individual and communal memory. In offering us opportunities to reflect on meaning and value, nostalgia contains unmistakably religious aspects, albeit in secular form.

John C. Lyden, University of Nebraska Omaha, USA

In this original and searching work, Chris Deacy captures the powerful collective emotion in response to the death of Queen Elizabeth II. This text not only shows how radio brings us unique personal connections to significant events, but how it integrates multiple depths of our social worlds across religion and the secular. Deacy skilfully rescues the value of nostalgia as something that helps us transform, not only the past, but the present and future.

Jeremy Carrette, University of Edinburgh, UK

Chris Deacy highlights the very real power and significance that nostalgia plays in everyday life. Deftly paying attention to media, political, social, and religious dimensions of nostalgia, and rooted in an analysis of media coverage of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, this excellent resource ably explores nostalgia as it functions as “Implicit Religion” for individuals and communities.

Stephen Garner, Laidlaw College, New Zealand