Sacred Ground
Americans and Their BattlefieldsSecond Edition
Foreword by Robert M. Utley
The ongoing struggles to define, control, and subvert patriotic faith
Paper – $35
978-0-252-06171-4
Publication Date
Paperback: 12/01/1993
About the Book
Americans have persistently expressed fascination with the nation's most famous battlefields through patriotic rhetoric, monument building, physical preservation, and battle reenactment. But each site is also a place where different groups of Americans come to compete for ownership of cherished national stories and to argue about the meaning of war, the importance of martial sacrifice, and the significance of preserving the nation's patriotic landscape.Edward Tabor Linenthal includes looks at the anniversary speeches at Lexington and Concord that shaped the image of the minuteman; Alamo Day speeches comparing the Texas "freedom fighters" of 1836 to Nicaragua’s contras; passionate arguments over the placement of Confederate monuments at Gettysburg; confrontations between the American Indian Movement and Custer loyalists during the Little Bighorn centennial; the treatment of the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor; and attempts to maintain the purity of these and other places in the face of commercialization.
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