Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America, New Edition
A history of U.S. Civil War monuments that shows how they distort history and perpetuate white supremacy

The United States began as a slave society, holding millions of Africans and their descendants in bondage, and remained so until a civil war took the lives of a half million soldiers, some once slaves themselves. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves explores how the history of slavery and its violent end was told in public spaces—specifically in the sculptural monuments that came to dominate streets, parks, and town squares in nineteenth-century America. Looking at monuments built and unbuilt, Kirk Savage shows how the greatest era of monument building in American history took place amid struggles over race, gender, and collective memory. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves probes a host of fascinating questions and remains the only sustained investigation of post-Civil War monument building as a process of national and racial definition. Featuring a new preface by the author that reflects on recent events surrounding the meaning of these monuments, and new photography and illustrations throughout, this new and expanded edition reveals how monuments exposed the myth of a "united" people, and have only become more controversial with the passage of time.

1128553471
Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America, New Edition
A history of U.S. Civil War monuments that shows how they distort history and perpetuate white supremacy

The United States began as a slave society, holding millions of Africans and their descendants in bondage, and remained so until a civil war took the lives of a half million soldiers, some once slaves themselves. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves explores how the history of slavery and its violent end was told in public spaces—specifically in the sculptural monuments that came to dominate streets, parks, and town squares in nineteenth-century America. Looking at monuments built and unbuilt, Kirk Savage shows how the greatest era of monument building in American history took place amid struggles over race, gender, and collective memory. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves probes a host of fascinating questions and remains the only sustained investigation of post-Civil War monument building as a process of national and racial definition. Featuring a new preface by the author that reflects on recent events surrounding the meaning of these monuments, and new photography and illustrations throughout, this new and expanded edition reveals how monuments exposed the myth of a "united" people, and have only become more controversial with the passage of time.

29.95 In Stock
Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America, New Edition

Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America, New Edition

by Kirk Savage
Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America, New Edition

Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America, New Edition

by Kirk Savage

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Overview

A history of U.S. Civil War monuments that shows how they distort history and perpetuate white supremacy

The United States began as a slave society, holding millions of Africans and their descendants in bondage, and remained so until a civil war took the lives of a half million soldiers, some once slaves themselves. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves explores how the history of slavery and its violent end was told in public spaces—specifically in the sculptural monuments that came to dominate streets, parks, and town squares in nineteenth-century America. Looking at monuments built and unbuilt, Kirk Savage shows how the greatest era of monument building in American history took place amid struggles over race, gender, and collective memory. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves probes a host of fascinating questions and remains the only sustained investigation of post-Civil War monument building as a process of national and racial definition. Featuring a new preface by the author that reflects on recent events surrounding the meaning of these monuments, and new photography and illustrations throughout, this new and expanded edition reveals how monuments exposed the myth of a "united" people, and have only become more controversial with the passage of time.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780691183152
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication date: 07/31/2018
Edition description: New
Pages: 296
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Kirk Savage is the William S. Dietrich II Professor of History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Monument Wars: Washington D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape (Princeton) and the editor of The Civil War in Art and Memory.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Ch. 1 Introduction 3

Ch. 2 Exposing Slavery 21

Ch. 3 Imagining Emancipation 52

Ch. 4 Freedom's Memorial 89

Ch. 5 Slavery's Memorial 129

Ch. 6 Common Soldiers 162

Ch. 7 Epilogue 209

Notes 215

Index 259

What People are Saying About This

Angela Miller

A finely conceptualized, beautifully argued study of the challenges of representing the new postwar relationship of black to white.
Angela Miller, Washington University

From the Publisher

"In a fascinating study of public space and the less-than-public contradictions of nineteenth-century culture, Kirk Savage sheds light not only on memory and monument but also on the invention of the 'popular' itself." —Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

"A richly detailed and engagingly written study."Boston Globe

"Kirk Savage shows ingenuity in his analysis and interpretation of post-war commemorative sculpture."Times Literary Supplement

"An important and innovative work that will surely gain a wide scholarly audience. . . . My hope is that it will also gain the wider readership its message deserves among the civic leaders who shape public policy and the general citizenry who both inherit and build the public monuments that guide public memory. Though the story Savage traces is often a discouraging one, his message is ultimately hopeful. By understanding how we have defined our past and our present through the lasting medium of public sculpture, we can imagine how we can shape, and perhaps redeem our future." —Catherine W. Bishir, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians

"[A] tour de force."Library Journal

Eric Lott

In my town there are equestrian statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson (Nat Turner has not yet found his monument, to say nothing of Sojourner Truth). In nearby Richmond, a twenty-four-foot statue of Arthur Ashe is dwarfed by sixty-foot statues of Lee and other Confederate heroes. Kirk Savage's Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves eloquently and authoritatively exposes the way racial dominance has been literally built into the public space that surrounds us—space in which it is, for this reason, increasingly difficult to live.
Eric Lott, University of Virginia, author of "Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class"

Henry Louis Gates

In a fascinating study of public space and the less-than-public contradictions of nineteenth-century culture, Kirk Savage sheds light not only on memory and monument, but also on the invention of the 'popular' itself.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

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