| Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies Contributor(s): Levinson, Sanford (Author) |
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ISBN: 0822322048 ISBN-13: 9780822322047 Publisher: Duke University Press OUR PRICE: $90.20 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: August 1998 Annotation: "Sanford Levinson has written a wonderfully wise and informed essay on the issue of how we commemorate the past when the past keeps on changing."--Nathan Glazer, author of "We Are All Multiculturalists Now" "Much has been written about the controversy over public presentations of history, but rarely has the question of how to memorialize our past received the thoughtful, incisive, and fair-minded analysis provided by Sanford Levinson."--Eric Foner, author of "The Story of American Freedom" "A profound and engrossing meditation on historical memory and national commemoration. It is so skillfully composed and illustrated with such striking examples that I read it in a single sitting, like a murder mystery--except that the question here is not 'who done it' but 'how do we reckon with what was done?'"--Michael Walzer, author of "On Toleration" "This remarkable book addresses an issue as old as civilization and as topical as this morning's newspaper. No reader of Levinson's cultivated, nuanced, and balanced narrative will ever view a public monument in quite the same way."--Norman Dorsen; President, ACLU, 1976-1991 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Anthropology - Physical - Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social |
| Dewey: 306.2 |
| LCCN: 97049361 |
| Series: Public Planet Books |
| Physical Information: 0.69" H x 5.5" W x 8.32" (0.64 lbs) 160 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Is it "Stalinist" for a formerly communist country to tear down a statue of Stalin? Should the Confederate flag be allowed to fly over the South Carolina state capitol? Is it possible for America to honor General Custer and the Sioux Nation, Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln? Indeed, can a liberal, multicultural society memorialize anyone at all, or is it committed to a strict neutrality about the quality of the lives led by its citizens? In Written in Stone, legal scholar Sanford Levinson considers the tangled responses of ever-changing societies to the monuments and commemorations created by past regimes or outmoded cultural and political systems. Drawing on examples from Albania to Zimbabwe, from Moscow to Managua, and paying particular attention to examples throughout the American South, Levinson looks at social and legal arguments regarding the display, construction, modification, and destruction of public monuments. He asks what kinds of claims the past has on the present, particularly if the present is defined in dramatic opposition to its past values. In addition, he addresses the possibilities for responding to the use and abuse of public spaces and explores how a culture might memorialize its historical figures and events in ways that are beneficial to all its members. Written in Stone is a meditation on how national cultures have been or may yet be defined through the deployment of public monuments. It adds a thoughtful and crucial voice into debates surrounding historical accuracy and representation, and will be welcomed by the many readers concerned with such issues. |