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Paul Shackel uses four well-known Civil War-era National Park sites to illustrate the evolution of commemorative expression at sites of controversy. He shows how interpretation may change dramatically from one generation to another as interpreters try to accommodate, or ignore, certain memories. Memory in Black and White is important reading for all who are interested in history and memory.
"Between 1820 and 1861 more than 12,000 American blacks made the long voyage to Liberia. Many were members of families that had been brought to America in the 1600s. In the jungles of West Africa these new settlers battled virulent tropical diseases, marauding wild beasts, and fierce native tribesmen; with only basic hand tools (draft animals could hardly survive the climate) they faced the challenge of carving out fields from one of the world's densest forests. To former masters and to their own people the new Liberians wrote letters about physical deprivations, often asking for help; they also reported proudly on the political progress of their adopted country, which became a republic in 1...
Is government forbidden to assist all religions equally, as the Supreme Court has held? Or does the First Amendment merely ban exclusive aid to one religion, as critics of the Court assert? The First Freedoms studies the church-state context of colonial and revolutionary America to present a bold new reading of the historical meaning of the religion clauses of the First Amendment. Synthesizing and interpreting a wealth of evidence from the founding of Virginia to the passage of the Bill of Rights, including everything published in America before 1791, Thomas Curry traces America's developing ideas on religious liberty and offers the most extensive investigation ever of the historical origins and background of the First Amendment's religion clauses.
In Reconstructing American Historical Cinema: From Cimarron to Citizen Kane, J. E. Smyth dramatically departs from the traditional understanding of the relationship between film and history. By looking at production records, scripts, and contemporary reviews, Smyth argues that certain classical Hollywood filmmakers were actively engaged in a self-conscious and often critical filmic writing of national history. Her volume is a major reassessment of American historiography and cinematic historians from the advent of sound to the beginning of wartime film production in 1942. Focusing on key films such as Cimarron (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), Scarface (1932), Ramona (1936), A Star Is Born (1...
Ronald Evans describes and interprets the continuing battles over the purposes, content, methods, and theorectical foundations of the social studies curriculum. This facinating volume: addresses the failure of social studies to reach its potential for dynamic teaching because of a lack of consensus in the field; links the ever-changing rhetoric and policy decisions to their influence on classroom practice; and helps to clarify the meaning, direction, and purposes of social studies instruction in schools.
America is a unique nation in history. No nation has been as free, prosperous, charitable, and virtuous. This has nothing to do with any inherent value of the American people, but has to do with the valuable ideas upon which she was founded. Seven foundational ideas are examined that produced the American Dream, all of which are Biblical in their origin and were planted by the early settlers. The first seed principles were planted in Jamestown 400 years ago. Though often ignored, Christianity was vital for the beginning of Virginia; God's hand was evident in preserving the colony and in the lives of many of its founders. The American Dream looks at Rev. Richard Hakluyt, the man most influent...
The First Amendment guarantee that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" rejected the millennium-old Western policy of supporting one form of Christianity in each nation and subjugating all other faiths. The exact meaning and application of this American innovation, however, has always proved elusive. Individual states found it difficult to remove traditional laws that controlled religious doctrine, liturgy, and church life, and that discriminated against unpopular religions. They found it even harder to decide more subtle legal questions that continue to divide Americans today: Did the constitution prohibit governmental support for religion altogether, or just...