Research Catalog

Shadowed ground : America's landscapes of violence and tragedy

Title: Shadowed ground : America's landscapes of violence and tragedy / Kenneth E. Foote.
Author: Foote, Kenneth E., 1955-
Publication: Austin : University of Texas Press, 1997.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	E159 .F68 1997	Off-site

Details

Description

371 pages : illustrations; 23 cm

Summary

From the battlefield at Gettysburg to the Oklahoma City block where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building once stood, sites of violence and tragedy have left indelible marks on the American landscape. Some have become places of pilgrimage, where visitors mourn losses, learn lessons from the tragedy, and experience renewal. Others became empty places where nothing remains to commemorate or even to mark the occurrence. In this pioneering book, Kenneth E. Foote explores how and why Americans have memorialized--or not--the sites of tragic and violent events. Drawing on years of travel and reflection, he traces the history of sites spanning three centuries and every region of the United States. Foote deduces that Americans usually react to the scenes of tragedy in one of four ways. Many places undergo public sanctification, such as Memphis' Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. Some are simply designated with a marker, while others are rectified and returned to normal use. Those that produce shame and revulsion are often obliterated and left empty. These differing reactions to sites of violence offer an important new perspective to the debate over violence in American society.

Subject

Genre/Form

History.
Local history.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

A Landscape of Violence and Tragedy -- The Veneration of Heroes and Martyrs -- Community and Catharsis -- Heroic Lessons -- Innocent Places -- The Mark of Shame -- The Land-Shape of Memory and Tradition -- Stigmata of National Identity -- Invisible and Shadowed Pasts -- Afterword: Recent Traumas, Changing Memories, Continuing Tensions.

ISBN

0292724993
9780292724990
0292725000
9780292725003

LCCN

96041081

OCLC

ocm35364707
35364707
SCSB-9525595

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library