The Vietnam War, Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine High School shooting, and attacks of 9/11 all shattered myths of national identity. Vietnam was a war the U.S. didn't win on the ground in Asia or politically at home; Oklahoma City revealed domestic terrorism in the heartland; Columbine debunked legends of high school as an idyllic time; and 9/11 demonstrated U.S. vulnerability to international terrorism. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was intended to separate the victims from the war that caused their death. This focus on individuals lost (evident in all the memorials and museums discussed here) conflates the function of cemeteries, where deaths are singular and grieving is personal, with that of memorials - to remember and mourn communal losses and reflect on national events seen in a larger context. Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11 traces the evolution and consequences of this new hybrid paradigm, which grants a heroic status to victims and by extension to their families, thereby creating a class of privileged participants in the permanent memorial process. It argues against this practice, suggesting instead that victims' families be charged with determining the nature of an interim memorial, one that addresses their needs in the critical time between the murder of their loved ones and the completion of the permanent memorial. It also charges that the memorials discussed here are variously based on strategies of diversion and denial that direct our attention away from actual events, and reframe tragedy as secular or religious triumph. Thus they basically camouflage history. Seen as an aggregate, they define a nation of victims, exactly the concept they and their accompanying celebratory narratives were apparently created to obscure.

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.

The Vietnam War, Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine High School shooting, and attacks of 9/11 all shattered myths of national identity. Vietnam was a war the U.S. didn't win on the ground in Asia or politically at home; Oklahoma City revealed domestic terrorism in the heartland; Columbine debunked legends of high school as an idyllic time; and 9/11 demonstrated U.S. vulnerability to international terrorism. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was intended to separate the victims from the war that caused their death. This focus on individuals lost (evident in all the memorials and museums discussed here) conflates the function of cemeteries, where deaths are singular and grieving is personal, with that of memorials - to remember and mourn communal losses and reflect on national events seen in a larger context. Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11 traces the evolution and consequences of this new hybrid paradigm, which grants a heroic status to victims and by extension to their families, thereby creating a class of privileged participants in the permanent memorial process. It argues against this practice, suggesting instead that victims' families be charged with determining the nature of an interim memorial, one that addresses their needs in the critical time between the murder of their loved ones and the completion of the permanent memorial. It also charges that the memorials discussed here are variously based on strategies of diversion and denial that direct our attention away from actual events, and reframe tragedy as secular or religious triumph. Thus they basically camouflage history. Seen as an aggregate, they define a nation of victims, exactly the concept they and their accompanying celebratory narratives were apparently created to obscure.

A comprehensive look at Louise Nevelson's career as a pioneering sculptor Louise Nevelson (1900-1988) was a towering figure in postwar American art, exerting great influence with her monumental installations, innovative sculptures made of found objects, and celebrated public artworks. The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson focuses on all phases of the artist's remarkable ascent to the top of the art world, from her groundbreaking works of the 1940s to complex pieces completed in the late 1980s. The most extensive study of Nevelson to be published in over 20 years, this beautifully illustrated book also demonstrates how Nevelson's flamboyant style and carefully cultivated persona enhanced her reputation as an artist of the first rank. Essays by distinguished scholars examine a wide variety of important issues and themes throughout Nevelson's career, including the role of monochromatic color in her painted wooden sculpture; the art-historical context of her work; her acclaimed large-scale commissioned artworks, which established her as a central figure in the public art revival of the late 1960s; and her "self-fashioning" as a celebrated artist, particularly her origins as a Ukrainian-born Jewish immigrant to the United States. An illustrated chronology and exhibition history accompany the text. Published in conjunction with the first major exhibition of Nevelson's work in America since 1980, this book provides essential information on and insights into the study of a revolutionary 20th-century artist.