Books like Marked, Unmarked, Remembered — picked by fans

Levinson’s book does not focus on traditional battle sites. Rather, it thoughtfully introduces readers to battles that take place over clashing expressions of public memory, particularly memorial controversies, including clashes over name changes and monument removal. I think readers will appreciate his thoughtful treatment of the vexing issues that have swirled around the appropriate location of Confederate memorials. Well before the recent push to remove such memorials from public space, Levinson offered readers various options for dealing with such volatile issues. His book is an insightful and timely guide into the battlefields of public memory.

I was transfixed by Kelman’s story, masterfully, sympathetically narrated. It’s populated by few monuments, and the one squatting at the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site is modest and understated. Here even the place of those dark events was in dispute.

Blending history with a gripping account of the struggle over public memory, and centering Native people, Kelman chronicles the modern search for the site (and meaning) of one of the most gruesome acts of government violence in American history, at Sand Creek, where U.S. troops slaughtered more than 150 peaceful Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho campers (mostly women and children) in November 1864.

The Colorado Pioneer Association commemorated (and glorified) the sordid event in 1909 with a Denver monument cataloging Sand Creek as a Civil War battle. But a search for truth and reconciliation would challenge and remake this public memory, and Kelman is an unrivaled guide in that process.

Given the alarming number of recent deaths by gun violence it is especially illuminating to consider the various ways sites of violence have been commemorated.

Ranging from total disappearance, to informative plaques, and major memorials, communities have reckoned with the aftermath in radically different ways.

I loved this book because it made me think about the content of site - or rather the content we attribute to the ground - where something shocking happened, be it a mass shooting or any other tragic event. 

Historian Mark M. Smith is one of the pioneers of the truly exciting field of sensory history. Smith’s book is a model for how the next generations of historians can expand our understanding of the power and spectacle of war through a focus on all the senses. Smith’s chapters pick a particular sense at a particular Civil War site—my favorite is “Cornelia Hancock’s Sense of Smell,” which helps us appreciate how the assaults of transgressive smells lasted far beyond the three days of combat at Gettysburg. Each chapter is carefully crafted to illustrate how an assault of the senses threatened the stability of what registered as “civilization” for the Civil War generation. After reading several of Smith’s books, I found myself much more attentive to the sensory dimension of any historical experience. Early in my tenure as editor of the Journal Of American History, I asked Smith to be… show more.

Controversial Monuments and Memorials was published the year after the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, which saw whites rally around the monument to Thomas Jefferson on the University of Virginia campus. This event, and the murders of nine African Americans at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC in 2015, hastened public discord with symbols of the Confederacy and white supremacy. Allison’s book was the first to step into the space where scholars, museum staff, and community activists came together to examine how monuments were used as tools for systemic racism as well as progressive social change. The book is a great resource for those looking to enter the conversation about controversies surrounding monuments and memorials in the United States.

Cool Gray City of Love is a portrait, in the most classical sense, of San Francisco, and Kamiya is the journeyman traveling the cityscape to capture his subject’s soul. Each chapter centers on a point on San Francisco’s vast landscape, which blossoms into a tiny universe of place and history at Kamiya’s hand. He begins at the Farallon Islands, then jumps to The Tenderloin, then to Alcatraz, followed by Glen Canyon. While the journey can seem as incongruous as Bullitt’s race through San Francisco, it is as equally compelling, entertaining, and stunning. You’ll find yourself pulled along, promising to put the book down at the end of each chapter but unable to, falling in love with the city as you go. 

The Silk Road is a nineteenth-century invention, but the movements of people, things, and ideas in and through the immense and often terrifying space between modern Iran and China generated change in every sphere and engaged an astonishing variety of people. Valerie Hansen’s exploration of seven places along the imagined route and what has been found in them offers a lucid and lively introduction to a wider medieval world and how we know about it. 

Art critic Gayford’s engaging and entertaining essays recount his adventures over the years when meeting artists and visiting destination art sites around the world, such as Brancusi’s Endless Column in Romania and the Chinati Foundation in Texas. A great storyteller, his writing is both chatty and informative and the book is a pleasure to read.

This short book starts with my favorite executive summary of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World, ‘Two statues, a temple, a roof-top garden, two tombs and a lighthouse’.

Each monument is discussed by an expert on the subject who gives you all you need to know and not much more.

The book was first published in 1988 but is still acknowledged as the best general summary, as the classical sources and archeology have not changed significantly since then.

Kalman's book on Heritage Management provides a great introduction and overview to the topic. He embraces an integrated and modern understanding of cultural heritage and addresses the potential obstacles heritage managers meet at the crossing points between the different relevant factors.

By focussing on the process, he gives fruitful insights based on case studies from around the world. Climate change, sustainability, and resilience are also integrated into this useful book.

I found this book useful because it describes cases, focuses on transferable principles, and emphasizes that the process is equally important as the desired result. By reading this book and the introduced approach, I really felt encouraged to follow up on my own approach, which I always focus on extracting strategies and principles from good examples because I strongly believe that they can be transferred much better to different places.

I also enjoyed the attention that has been given to… show more.