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Books > Arts & Architecture > Architecture > Public buildings: civic, commercial, industrial, etc > Memorials, monuments
Authorized Heritage analyses the history of commemoration at
heritage sites across western Canada. Using extensive research from
predominantly government records, it argues that heritage
narratives are almost always based on national messages that
commonly reflect colonial perceptions of the past. Yet many of the
places that commemorate Indigenous, fur trade, and settler
histories are contested spaces, places such as Batoche, Seven Oaks,
and Upper Fort Garry being the most obvious. At these heritage
sites, Indigenous views of history confront the conventions of
settler colonial pasts and represent the fluid cultural
perspectives that should define the shifting ground of heritage
space. Robert Coutts brings his many years of experience as a
public historian to this detailed examination of heritage sites
across the prairies. He shows how the process of commemoration
often reflects social and cultural perspectives that privilege a
conventional and conservative national narrative. He also examines
how class, gender, and sexuality often remain apart from the
heritage discourse. Most notably, Authorized Heritage examines how
governments became the mediators of what is heritage and, just as
significantly, what is not.
Monuments around the world have become the focus of intense and
sustained discussions, activism, vandalism, and removal. Since the
convulsive events of 2015 and 2017, during which white supremacists
committed violence in the shadow of Confederate symbols, and the
2020 nationwide protests against racism and police brutality,
protesters and politicians in the United States have removed
Confederate monuments, as well as monuments to historical figures
like Christopher Columbus and Dr. J. Marion Sims, questioning their
legitimacy as present-day heroes that their place in the public
sphere reinforces. The essays included in this anthology offer
guidelines and case studies tailored for students and teachers to
demonstrate how monuments can be used to deepen civic and
historical engagement and social dialogue. Essays analyze specific
controversies throughout North America with various outcomes as
well as examples of monuments that convey outdated or unwelcome
value systems without prompting debate.
It is fascinating to think that many hundreds of generations of
Londoners lie beneath the city without us knowing. Over many
centuries burial grounds have been developed, built over and then
forgotten, often beneath playgrounds, gardens or car parks. When
modern development takes place, remains are disturbed and we are
reminded of a London that has long since disappeared, particularly
with recent archaeological discoveries across the city. In London's
Hidden Burial Grounds, authors Robert Bard and Adrian Miles seek to
uncover many of the capital's lost graveyards, often in the
unlikeliest of places.
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