Monument Culture

Reviews / Votes

Ultimately, Monument Culture makes a strong intervention on the growing scholarly literature and media coverage related to monuments. This intervention is particularly welcome as the approach is truly international in scope, emphasizing the global nature of this culture and its complexities in diverse contexts across seven continents. This volume will therefore be of interest to scholars and students of cultural heritage studies, museum studies, library and information science, history, art and architecture. It should also be of value to individuals concerned with or working in public policy arenas, particularly policies pertaining to public space and culture. * Museum & Society * Monument Culture makes a valuable contribution that moves beyond the superficial debates around "do monuments teach us history." For public historians seeking to engage with monuments and public commemoration, the book offers an excellent opportunity to consider this issue from a range of perspectives * The Public Historian * A public historian and scholar of art and culture, Macaluso presents global perspectives on the meaning and use of monuments and memorials and the broader categorization of monument culture and its shifting terrain internationally. The book's 20 essays address monuments in terms of landscape, people, and sense of place; trauma and violence/reconciliation and reparation; migration and identity; the practice of monuments (away from the built environment and toward installations, ephemera, and social media); and controversy and difficult histories. Many contributions, along with the opening and closing essays, overlap in addressing these five themes and thereby demonstrate how contemporary monument culture is concerned universally with constructions of identity, community, and history. Varied in methodology, literary style, and disciplinary approach, the essays bring together scholarship and artistic and social practice from seven continents and a number of academic fields. Offering brief, thoughtful, and enriching case studies that demonstrate the possibilities of an informed understanding of monuments yesterday, today, and tomorrow, Monument Culture will interest students and scholars of history, public history, public art, and engaged social practice as well as those in the cultural heritage sector.

Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. * Choice Reviews * Countering this are signs of a growing sense of transnational solidarity directed at promoting human rights in the present and correcting commemorative injustices. But these same forces can be used to advance very different causes. The so-called "good Fascism", as Macaluso puts it, on offer in heritage-rich Italy resonates with Trump's equivocal response to Charlottesville. . . And that's precisely why we need books such as Monument Culture. Its many clever contributors help us prepare for that fateful day when the late, great Trump mutates from bile into bronze. For every person cheering his erection, someone else will be trying to tear it down. But, hey, that'll be OK. After all, there are sure to be "very fine people on both sides". * Museums Journal * Macaluso's Monument Culture features a wide-ranging, insightful group of essays that span the globe and illuminate one of the most critical issues of our time. From Antarctica to South Korea and beyond, this book is essential reading to understand how communities choose to remember and memorialize the contested past. -- David B. Allison, editor of Controversial Monuments and Memorials: A Guide for Community Leaders The authors in Monument Culture do not promise solutions to the conundrums posed by monuments in today's world. Instead, you'll find something much more challenging and enriching-a transnational survey of commemorative practices that will lead readers to question their beliefs about the cultural work of monuments. -- Modupe Labode, Associate Professor, History and Museum Studies and Public Scholar of African American History and Museums, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis