| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.2

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 213 words from this article are provided below; about 431 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Memory in Black and White: Race, Commemoration, and the Post-Bellum Landscape. By Paul A. Shackel. (Walnut Creek: AltaMira, 2003. xviii, 250 pp. Cloth, $70.00, ISBN 0-7591-0262-7. Paper, $26.95, ISBN 0-7591-0263-5.)
Paul A. Shackel's thoughtful new volume adds to the discourse on collective memory by offering a quartet of provocative case studies on the role of race in the creation of four sites interpreted by the National Park Service. Digging deeply into the origins of a building, two monuments, and a battlefield, Shackel uncovers a stratigraphy of changing racial thought that has profoundly shaped the stories told at these venues. Commemoration, it turns out, is at best an act of mediation.	1
Shackel front-loads his book with a brief history of the social construction of racial difference and argues that public history is best understood in the contexts of memory and power. Embracing Eric Hobsbawm's burnished paradigm of invented tradition, Shackel is clear that he takes history to be "a reflection of present political social relations [rather] than a true reconstruction of the past" (p. 11). As grist for this mill he offers an overview of the century of lopsided negotiations between North and South, black and white that has culminated in our current understanding of the Civil War.	. . .

There are about 431 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.