The fact that information acquired before the onset of amnesia can be lost (retrograde amnesia) has fascinated psychologists, biologists, and clinicians for over 100 years. Studies of retrograde amnesia have led to the concept of memory consolidation, whereby medial temporal lobe structures direct the gradual establishment of memory representations in neocortex. Recent theoretical accounts have inspired a simple neural network model that produces behavior consistent with experimental data and makes these ideas about memory consolidation more concrete. Recent physiological and anatomical findings provide important information about how memory consolidation might actually occur.