ePub A Concise History of Christian Doctrine by Justo L. González in History

Description

The United States of America originated 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 that history of slavery and its violent end was told in public space--specifically in the sculptural monuments that increasingly came to dominate streets; parks; and town squares in nineteenth-century America. Here Kirk Savage shows how the greatest era of monument building in American history arose amidst struggles over race; gender; and collective memory. As men and women North and South fought to define the war's legacy in monumental art; they reshaped the cultural landscape of American nationalism. At the same time that the Civil War challenged the nation to reexamine the meaning of freedom; Americans began to erect public monuments as never before. Savage studies this extraordinary moment in American history when a new interracial order seemed to be on the horizon; and when public sculptors tried to bring that new order into concrete form. Looking at monuments built and unbuilt; Savage shows how an old image of black slavery was perpetuated while a new image of the common white soldier was launched in public space. Faced with the challenge of Reconstruction; the nation ultimately recast itself in the mold of the ordinary white man. Standing Soldiers; Kneeling Slaves; the first sustained investigation of monument building as a process of national and racial definition; probes a host of fascinating questions: How was slavery to be explained without exploding the myth of a "united" people? How did notions of heroism become racialized? And more generally; who is represented in and by monumental space? How are particular visions of history constructed by public monuments? Written in an engaging fashion; this book will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in American culture; race relations; and public art.