Exactly how this forgetting process took place is related towards the end of a history of The Book which was serialised as a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and is how I found out about it https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b3mdc8, the reading is no longer available so here are the full details;
- The Book, A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time, Keith Huston, W.W.Norton & Company, 2016, ISBN 978-0393244793
Part 2 Assess - Timeline - History Overview - The Recent Past