On the matter of statues

This inter-disciplinary volume demonstrates, from a range of perspectives, the complex cultural work and struggles over meaning that lie at the heart of what we call memory. In the last decade, a focus on memory in the human sciences has encouraged new approaches to the study of the past. As the humanities and social sciences have put into question their own claims to objectivity, authority and universality, memory has appeared to offer a way of engaging with knowledge of the past as inevitably partial, subjective and local. At the same time, memory and memorial practices have become sites of contestation, and the politics of memory are increasingly prominent.

In his intriguing examination of Civil War remembrance as a public art, Thomas Brown uses civic monuments, ceremonial oratory, historical reenactment, and other forms of commemoration to explore how Americans have addressed issues of nationhood, race relations, gender, and cultural continuity in periods of social and economic upheaval. Drawing on the latest scholarship, Brown provides an informative narrative frame for 24 rich primary texts that range chronologically from the Gettysburg Address to recent debates over display of the Confederate flag. The volume includes more than 30 illustrations of public monuments and mass-circulated prints to help students learn to interpret visual evidence. A chronology of Civil War commemoration, questions for consideration, and a bibliography provide strong pedagogical support.

A psychological portrait of the man from humble roots who slowly but determinedly found his niche as an attorney, then as a politician, & finally as president.
David Herbert Donald is the author of We Are Lincoln Men, Lincoln, which won the prestigious Lincoln Prize and was on the New York Times bestseller list for fourteen weeks, and Lincoln at Home. He has twice won the Pulitzer Prize, for Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, and for Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe. He is the Charles Warren Professor of American History and of American Civilization Emeritus at Harvard University and resides in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

"Lincoln and the Indians has stood the test of time and offers this generation of readers a valuable interpretation of the U.S. government's Indian policies--and sometimes the lack thereof--during the Civil War era. Providing a critical perspective on Lincoln's role, Nichols sets forth an especially incisive analysis of the trial of participants in the Dakota War of 1862 in Minnesota and Lincoln's role in sparing the lives of most of those who were convicted." -- James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom "For the Dakota people, the Indian System started with the doctrine of discovery and continued through Abraham Lincoln's presidency and beyond. The United States was bound to protect the rights of Indian parties. But in the end, the guilty were glorified and the laws for humanity disgraced. This book tells that story, and it should be required reading at all educational institutions." --Sheldon Wolfchild, independent filmmaker, artist, and actor "Undoubtedly the best book published on Indian affairs in the years of Lincoln's presidency." --American Historical Review