US Public Memory, Rhetoric, and the National Mall

(Hardback)

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Description

US Public Memory, Rhetoric, and the National Mall examines the nations front yard, understanding it as both a public face the United States presents to the world and a site where its less apparent moral story is told. This book provides a uniquely thorough, interdisciplinary, and integrated examination of how the National Mall shares a moral story of the United States and, in so doing, reveals the soul of the nation. The contributors explore 11 different memorials, monuments, and museums found across the Mall, considering how each rhetorically remembers a key element of the nations past, what the rhetorical memory tells us about the nations soul, and how each site must thus be understood in relation to the commemorative landscape of the Mall.

Reviews

Memorials, like people, have biographies, and these thoughtful essays escort readers into the vibrant, challenging world of memorial processes on our National Mall. -- Edward T. Linenthal, author of Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America's Holocaust Museum and The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in Amer
Few places in the US are more central to US national identity than is the National Mall in Washington, DC. This book engages a crucial question regarding this space: How does the National Mall reflect the soul of the nation The lively and accessible chapters collected address this central question with care and charisma. This is a fine book about the National Mall. It is also a dynamic introduction to the rhetorical and cultural study of memory places and national identity. -- Greg Dickinson, Colorado State University

Author Bio

Roger C. Aden is professor in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University.