Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Slavery And Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory
    Unavailable
    Slavery And Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory
    Unavailable
    Slavery And Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory
    Ebook453 pages9 hours

    Slavery And Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory

    By The New Press

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    America's slave past is being analyzed as never before, yet it remains one of the most contentious issues in U.S. memory. In recent years, the culture wars over the way that slavery is remembered and taught have reached a new crescendo. From the argument about the display of the Confederate flag over the state house in Columbia, South Carolina, to the dispute over Thomas Jefferson's relationship with his slave Sally Hemings and the ongoing debates about reparations, the questions grow ever more urgent and more difficult.

    Edited by noted historians James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, this collection explores current controversies and offers a bracing analysis of how people remember their past and how the lessons they draw influence American politics and culture today. Bringing together some of the nation's most respected historians, including Ira Berlin, David W. Blight, and Gary B. Nash, this is a major contribution to the unsettling but crucial debate about the significance of slavery and its meaning for racial reconciliation.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe New Press
    Release dateMay 10, 2011
    ISBN9781595587442
    Unavailable
    Slavery And Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory

    Related to Slavery And Public History

    Related ebooks

    Ethnic Studies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Our Founding Contradiction

      Dec 1, 2022

      Early in this compelling account of the tangled relationship between liberty and slavery, Edward J. Larson, a professor of history at Pepperdine University, cites the chaotic 1770 riot known as the Boston Massacre. Six Bostonians protesting import du

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Unique Nation?

      Jun 29, 2021

      A Unique Nation?
      2 min read

    • Article

      Michael Harriot's 'Black AF History' Could Hardly Come At A Better Time

      Sep 22, 2023

      This engaging, well-researched, and frequently laugh-out-loud funny history places the Black experience at center stage with stories that should have already been part of our collective memory.

      4 min read

    • Article

      'The War Before The War' Chronicles The Role Fugitive Slaves Played In Widening Gap Between North And South

      Nov 7, 2018

      Americans pledge allegiance to “one Nation under God … with liberty and justice for all.” But for the first 89 years of its existence, America consisted of two distinct nations: one slave and one free. The halves were cobbled together by the United S

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Soul of W. E. B. Du Bois

      Feb 14, 2018

      The Soul of W. E. B. Du Bois
      15 min read

    • Article

      The Runaway Question

      Sep 4, 2018

      The Runaway Question
      4 min read

    • Article

      Fear And Weakness

      Dec 28, 2022

      Fear And Weakness
      2 min read

    • Article

      Henry Louis Gates Jr. on His Never-ending Quest to Excavate African-American History

      Dec 13, 2017

      Pioneering feminist Anna J. Cooper once wrote, "black people have to stop imitating white people and white culture." She went on to say that black Americans in 1893 had to find their own voice, the roots of which are buried in the literature, mytholo

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Rediscovery Of America: Why It’s Vital To Highlight Native American History

      May 8, 2023

      Four centuries after African captives arrived on the shore of Virginia, America’s origin story was recast by the 1619 Project with slavery and the contribution of African Americans at his heart. It was a long overdue corrective to white Eurocentric n

      6 min read

    • Article

      Bravehearted Women

      Aug 29, 2023

      Bravehearted Women
      7 min read

    • Article

      America’s Origin Stories Abound With Complexities

      Nov 22, 2021

      “An argument without end” is how Joseph J. Ellis characterizes history in “The Cause: The American Revolution and Its Discontents, 1773-1783,” one of several notable fall releases on America’s Revolutionary War era.  Like “The Cause,” new works by hi

      4 min read

    • Article

      'These Truths' Takes A Deep Look At The Relative Success Of The American Experiment

      Sep 21, 2018

      Harvard history professor and acclaimed author Jill Lepore examines American history to see how well the country has succeeded in living up to its own ideals.

      3 min read

    • Article

      America’s Caste System

      Oct 10, 2020

      Termed an “instant American classic” by The New York Times, Isabel Wilkerson’s thorny book is not the first to use “caste” to probe America’s racial ills. A European word popularised in India by the Portuguese, “caste” has often featured in explanati

      3 min read

    • Article

      Tragic Encounters

      Apr 14, 2018

      Tragic Encounters
      2 min read

    Reviews for Slavery And Public History

    4/5

    8 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Public history, history presented in museums, parks and at historical sites, is the sharp end of scholarship. We Americans know our history. We remember what our parents, grandparents, and teachers have told us about the way things were. We have seen John Wayne die defending the Alamo, and die again building airstrips in the South Pacific. However, our historical memory is often at odds with historical fact. James Oliver Horton and Lois Horton’s 2009 book “Slavery and Public History: the Tough Stuff of American Memory” is a collection of essays examining the causes and outcomes of some recent controversies that have resulted when memory and fact collide.All of the essays that the Hortons chose for the book are readable easy to follow. Given that a public historian's job is to present complicated issues and events in a manner acceptable to experts and understandable to school children I would not expect anything less. In fact, he difference between “historical memory” and “historical fact” a distinction I have stumbled over in the past, is better explained here than in any historiography I have read. In addition to the opening theoretical articles there are several interesting case studies presented, the controversy on the new building for the Liberty Bell and its location on the site of the Presidents House, introducing the stories of bonded servants to tours at historical sites like Monticello and “My Old Kentucky Home” Park, and reinterpreting Richmond Virginia’s public space to encourage historical tourism in the new, New South, are interesting and, for me, somewhat surprising. Edward Lnienthal wraps the book up by showing that our disconnect between our “historical memory” and our factual, documented history is not restricted to slavery or even to the United States by pointing out similar disconnects around the world. If you have ever disagreed with something you read in a museum or on a monument you might enjoy this book.